


Even The Thorns Have Roses

by robindrake93



Series: Revenge, And A Little Bit More [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, BAMF Percy Jackson, Boys Kissing, Canon-Typical Violence, Confused Luke Castellan, Dark Percy Jackson, Denial of Feelings, Eventual Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace, Flirting, Happy Nico, Luke Castellan Redemption, M/M, Nico di Angelo has a Crush on Percy Jackson, POV First Person, Past Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Sassy Percy Jackson, Secrets, Slow Burn, Time Travel Fix-It, Underage Drinking, de-aged Percy Jackson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 109,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robindrake93/pseuds/robindrake93
Summary: All Percy Jackson wants to do is live at the bottom of a lake and be left alone. Apparently that's too much to ask for, because the next thing he knows, he's been given a chance to change the past and save one demigod of his choosing. He can't very well say no to that kind of opportunity and Percy has plans; he isn't going to let ANY of the demigods die.
Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson
Series: Revenge, And A Little Bit More [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679623
Comments: 593
Kudos: 990
Collections: Best of the time travel and SI/OCs, Storycatchers' Stories of the sea, perseusjackson





	1. We Get Kidnapped By A God

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally write in first person POV. For me, it's a sign of an inexperienced writer. However, I do love the tone of the first Percy Jackson series and so I've elected to use first person. Gods help me. And I tried to copy Rick's writing style. 
> 
> The underage tag is simply because for some of this fic, Percy will be in his 12-year-old body. However, as in the real books, Percy will in fact, grow up. Again. More tags will be added as I think of them.
> 
> If you don't like the font color, click "Hide Creator's Style" at the top and it'll revert to black.
> 
> EDIT: the fic got too horny so I bumped the rating up.
> 
> EDIT 2: My fics are not for reupload. Do not steal my fics and reupload them anywhere. You do not have permission. I do not want any of my fics uploaded to other websites or reuploaded to AO3. Due to summybeargirl on Wattpad stealing and uploading this fic onto that deplorable website, Thorns is now available to read only for users. Sorry to my 225 guest readers, you won't get to see how this story ends unless you get an account.

  
Look. When you’re the child of a God, your life isn’t your own. 

The only perks are the powers and even those can have some major drawbacks. Like death and mutilation. Both are more common than you might think. 

The Gods control every single aspect of demigod lives and usually their decisions suck. And I do mean every aspect. What you dream, who you love, where you live, how you feel, what species you are. 

Demigods have to just go along with it. Rebelling against a God comes with major consequences. There are worse things than death, but death is usually enough to quell any rebellions. I knew some demigods who wanted to tear the Gods down brick by brick. Now, if their story is told at all, it’s a cautionary tale. 

If you’re too young to remember or hadn’t been born yet, then the first thing they’ll tell you is that this is the way things are. 

And if you don’t like it, well, demigods don’t live long anyway. 

My name is Percy Jackson. 

I’m the son of Poseidon. I’m twenty years old, which isn’t an age I ever thought I would reach. Until a few minutes ago, I was at the bottom of the canoe lake at Camp Half-Blood. 

How did I get here?

The Gods. Naturally. 

I avoided Olympus as much as possible. Which is easier than you might expect since the Gods were more than happy to let me hide in the lake and mind my own business. But I recognized the style of architecture as something that Annabeth Chase had built so I knew exactly where I was, despite having never been here before. 

Annabeth Chase is the daughter of Athena. She’s an attractive woman with long blonde hair that she kept tied up in a bun because she hated it getting in her way. Her eyes were silver, which was fitting because her mind worked like a machine. Annabeth got to rebuild Olympus after the Second Titan War. She’s also my ex-girlfriend. 

Our breakup was pretty amiable. And I dumped her, by the way. Over an Iris Message because we hadn’t seen each other in six months and I wasn’t going to make the trip to Olympus. There was a time when I wanted to build a family with her but I’ve since given up that dream. 

Anyway, I was in Olympus against my will. 

And I was not the only one. There were thirty other demigods in the room, all of them faces that I recognized from Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter. Based on their status alone, I knew that we were all in monumental trouble. 

Then again, we were all sitting on thrones so I wasn’t sure how much trouble we were really in. Maybe it was just going to be a monumental headache. The throne I was seated on was made of white marble and adorned with seashells and pearls. There were figures of hippocampi carved into the marble and their bodies shimmered like abalone shells. It wasn’t as magnificent as Poseidon’s throne and I couldn’t feel the entire ocean at my fingertips but it was still pretty cool. 

All of the demigods whose godly parent was male were on the right, while all of the demigods whose godly parent was female were on the left. The thrones were arranged in an oval, headed on one side by Jupiter and the other by Zeus. Those thrones sat empty, as there weren’t any living demigod children except for Thalia Grace. Thalia sat on Artemis’ throne, her bow slung over the back of it. She was a Hunter of Artemis, which meant that Zeus no longer claimed her. 

Annabeth sat opposite me. She looked as confused as I felt but I could see the gears of her mind working. 

“Annabeth,” I called to her. “Did you make these?” 

I expected her to say yes. But Annabeth shook her head. “I didn’t make this room at all, Percy.” 

Like I said; this was at minimum going to be a headache. 

A man that I didn’t recognize appeared in the center of the room. I was smart enough to know that he was a God but for some reason I couldn’t place him. He looked at once ancient and youthful, with long lavender hair. He wore a floor-length robe that looked like something a cartoon wizard might wear. The God radiated a power stronger than anything I had ever felt before. It dwarfed the power even Zeus cast. 

The group of demigods fell silent at his arrival. We waited tensely for whatever information the God was about to bestow upon us. The longer the God went without speaking, the more the tension rose. All of the demigods were seasoned warriors. We knew when bad news was about to be delivered. 

“I am Chronos,” the God said. His voice sounded like it was right in my ear even though he hadn’t moved. The accent was unlike anything I had ever heard, though it was pretty clear that English wasn’t his first language. “I am the God of Time, father of Chaos and Aether.” 

An audible gasp moved throughout the seated demigods. I doubted that most of us really knew what that meant but it sounded impressive. At least it explained the ageless quality his features had. Though Chronos really needed a wardrobe update. I looked down the row of seats and saw that Nico Di Angelo had gone a little green in the face. All of the color had drained from Annabeth’s face and her stricken expression matched Nico’s. 

Nico Di Angelo was the son of Hades and my only rival when it came to power levels. At least on a demigod standard. His knowledge of the Gods was rivaled only by Annabeth’s. So if he was worried about this Chronos, I figured I should be too. 

I turned my attention back to Chronos. 

Time skipped and suddenly I knew what Chronos wanted. But I didn’t know why. 

“Make your decision, demigods.” Chronos said and then he was gone. 

Damien White, son of Nemesis, spoke first, “One of us will be sent back in time?”

“To save someone,” Piper McLean sounded hopeful. She leaned forward in her throne.

“And they get to keep their memories,” Annabeth finished. She leaned back on her throne and took her pencil from behind her ear. She twirled the pencil while she thought about what Chronos had said. 

“Who do we send?” Frank Zhang, son of Mars, asked.

At the same time, Nico asked, “Why is he doing this?” 

All eyes moved to Nico. 

Nico lifted his chin, didn’t balk under the attention. He was too self-assured for that. It was a good look on him. If only they could convince him to get a new aviator jacket. “That was Chronos. He’s not just the God of Time. He’s the god of...of _everything_. The God of Gods. Without him, there wouldn’t be any Gods, Roman or Greek. He came before the Titans, before _Gaea_.” 

Nico’s revelation was met with heavy silence. 

Judging by the expression on the faces around me, I saw that I wasn’t the only one who had seriously misjudged Chronos. The blood drained from my face. What did the God of Gods want with us? We must have been like ants to him, if that. We were nothing to him. 

Nico echoed the question I asked myself, “What does he want with _us_?” 

Ida, a Roman legacy of Luna, shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what he wants with us. He said we need to make a decision. Who do we send?” 

“Does who we send matter so much as who we save?” Hazel Levesque asked. She was the daughter of Pluto and Nico’s half sister. Her throne was adorned with valuable gemstones but they seemed to make her deeply uncomfortable. 

Frank nodded. He was Hazel’s boyfriend and her fellow praetor. “There are so many demigods, Roman and Greek, who have died. How do we decide on just one to bring back?”

The bones in Nico’s throne vibrated. There was no doubt of who he wanted to save. His sister Bianca. She died when Nico was eleven, while on a mission that I was in charge of. Her death still weighed on both of us. 

Annabeth stopped twirling her pencil. “Who would you save, Frank? How would you choose a single soul?” 

To his credit, Frank didn’t wither under Annabeth’s intense gaze. He looked back at her with a calm demeanor, which was impressive considering who his dad was. I liked to think he got his level-headedness from Poseidon’s side of the family, since Frank was also a legacy of Poseidon. “Jason Grace. I would save Jason.” 

Hazel nodded her approval. “I would also save Jason.” 

All eyes in the room rotated to Thalia. Jason was her little brother. They had been separated when Jason was two years old and reunited for less than a full year before Jason was murdered. Thalia kept her eyes fixed on her lap. She remained silent. It was unlike her but I thought I knew why. Jason wasn’t the demigod that Thalia wanted most to bring back. 

“Jason is a good choice,” Leo Valdez agreed. His throne was made of what looked like scrap metal. It suited him and his steampunk elf style. He was the son of Hephaestus. “How far back in time are we going to go, though? Because there are demigods older than all of us that we could bring back if we wanted to.” 

That was something none of us had thought of. We all took a minute to think about it. Should we bring back some long-dead demigod? Someone that we didn’t even know? I’d met Hercules and I wasn’t impressed with him. Would the older demigods be like that? 

“I don’t think we should worry about the demigods before our generations,” Annabeth said. Before Nico or Hazel could say anything, she added, “With the obvious exceptions to the children of Hades and Pluto.” 

There was a murmur of consensus. 

“A vote would be good,” Damien chimed in. When we looked at him, he added, “Nemesis is also the Goddess of balance, idiots. We’re making a big decision… It just feels right, okay?” 

Across from him, Chiara Benvenuti smiled warmly. Chiara was Damien’s not-so-secret girlfriend and the daughter of Tyche. “It wouldn’t hurt anything to vote,” she agreed. 

I barely resisted rolling my eyes. Now that I was a single man, I couldn’t stand the couple stuff. Even Frank and Hazel sometimes made me nauseous. But here was the real kicker. I was surrounded by couples right now. Admittedly, most of them were Greek couples: Chiara and Damien, Nico and Will Solace, Sherman Yang and Miranda Gardiner. 

The vote commenced and went the same way as the murmurings had; we were going to rescue someone who had died more recently. The only demigod who didn’t vote was Clovis - son of Hypnos - but he’d been asleep the whole time anyway and had missed the entire meeting thus far. 

Pollux jumped out of his throne. “A vote on who we save isn’t fair!” 

“Why isn’t it fair, Pollux?” Annabeth asked in a tone of voice that meant she didn’t value his opinion. 

Pollux made a face at her. He was the son of Dionysus, which meant that I didn’t have a high opinion of him either. Not that demigods were their parents, but I just really hated Dionysus and Pollux’s half-brother, Dakota, wasn’t high on my list of Favorite Demigods either. “Because over half of you would vote for Jason Grace because you were friends with him! What about Castor?” He turned to the Roman half of the room. “What about Dakota?”

Those who had been members of the Fifth Cohort exchanged looks. The few demigods who hadn’t, didn’t look impressed by Pollux dropping Dakota’s name. And the Greeks just looked confused. Dakota had died before the two Camps really mingled. 

Pollux slumped back in his seat. 

“He does bring up a good point. A lot of you were friends with Jason Grace,” Holly Victor said with a sly smile on her face. She was the daughter of Nike. “Besides, we should be choosing the best demigod to bring back. Someone _worthy_.” 

“Oh boy,” I muttered under my breath. Now she did it. 

Piper jumped to her feet. “Oh, and who would you bring back, Holly? What demigod is worth more than Jason Grace? _Tell me._” Piper was Jason’s ex-girlfriend. She’d broken up with him before he was murdered. Her mother was Aphrodite.

Holly’s face scrunched up. Then she spat out, “No one! I don’t think anyone is worth more than Jason Grace.” She looked furious about Piper using the charmspeak on her. 

Holly’s twin sister, Laurel, burst into giggles. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “We should start with a list of names. Who we want to save the most. Then we’ll give presentations stating our cases and finally, we’ll vote on it.” 

Sherman sneered at Annabeth. “Who says _you_ get to be in charge?” He sounded so much like his half sister Clarisse that it was uncanny. It was like Ares just popped out identical asshole children. The only one I could stand was Frank, and he was born to Mars, not Ares. 

I don’t want to bore anyone with the details but it took two days for them to come up with their list and give their presentations. I watched one by one as they stood up and made their cases for who they wanted to come back. 

Nico spoke for Bianca. His boyfriend, Will, supported this notion even though he’d never met Bianca.

Frank, Hazel, Piper, and Leo spoke at length for Jason. So did a few other Roman demigods. 

Pollux wanted his twin back. It was understandable but none of the Dionysus children were very popular. 

A few other demigods of Roman or Greek origin were mentioned and though a few passionate arguments were made, I don’t think anyone was swayed. The fact was, this wasn’t just a popularity contest. Holly had brought up a good point. Who was _worth it_? It was hard to coldly judge your friends and family like that. 

Annabeth and Thalia went last. Neither of them made an argument for their choice because his actions couldn’t be defended. They nominated Luke Castellan. Luke was an even less popular choice than Castor was.

You might be wondering who my choice was. I didn’t argue one way or another and just waved away when it was my turn to speak. I’m sure that my apparent indifference seemed uncharacteristic from the outside. The truth was, I had a plan and I was playing the long game. 

After two days of constant fighting and talking, the others were tired. The only one who wasn’t tired was Clovis but he was literally asleep and had not contributed anything to the meeting except for making the demigods closest to him nod off occasionally. Now that everyone had worn themselves out, it was my turn. 

I stood up and the room went silent. It was partially because the others respected me and partially because I hadn’t moved in two days. My bones cracked like gunfire in the resulting silence. “Now that everyone has got that out of their system…” I paused for effect, “I’m going.” 

For about ten seconds there was complete and utter silence. Even Clovis stopped snoring. 

“You, Jackson?” Sherman scoffed disbelievingly. I was reminded yet again of his sister. If it was Clarisse here instead of Sherman, she wouldn’t have protested me. We had an understanding.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me.” 

Another uncomfortable silence followed my confirmation. 

Butch frowned. “Why should you be the one to go, Percy? You haven’t even told us who you want to save.” He was the son of Iris and not one that I thought would have opposed the idea. 

“Just because you were a hero once, doesn’t mean that you’re fit for this. This is about saving people, Jackson, and I’ve heard that you’ve got a high death toll.” Laurel added. For once it didn’t sound like she was just trying to stir the pot. Though with her, it was hard to tell. The Nike twins hated to lose anything. 

“We should send someone who won’t lose,” Holly added with a sneer at her twin. 

“Like me?” Laurel snarked back. 

Annabeth frowned at the twins and then turned her attention to me. “Whoever goes should be the smartest and you...aren’t the smartest, Percy.” 

I thought of glaciers and gave Annabeth the coldest look I could muster. “Thank you, Annabeth, for reminding the group that I’m nothing but a seaweed brain compared to you.” My words were like icicles. Annabeth talking down to me was one of the biggest reasons I dumped her. I didn’t regret it. 

Annabeth’s face turned pink. We kept the reason for our breakup pretty closely under wraps and she didn’t like that I was airing our dirty laundry. Or that it made her look bad. 

“Percy,” Nico’s voice drew my attention. “We all have people we want to save. But you haven’t told us who you want to save.” His face was expressionless but his eyes held all of the hope in the world. It hurt to look at him and know that I was going to let him down again. 

“I’m sorry, Nico,” I said. 

The bones on his throne rattled more violently than before. Shadows gathered around him and hid him from view. “Fuck you, Percy.” 

That was fair. Bianca was a sore spot between us; as was the fact that Nico still loved me. I let his anger and the hurt it caused to roll off of me. “I’m going to save one person. And saving him is going to save almost every other demigod.” 

All of the embarrassment vanished from Annabeth’s demeanor as she realized who I was talking about. “You want to save Luke?” 

Thalia sat up, suddenly interested again. “But Percy, he tried to kill you so many times. Why do you want to save him?” 

I looked at the shadows surrounding Nico again. I knew where his anger came from because I’d been in his shoes. Luke was my first crush, the first person I loved besides my mom and Grover. Things went bad between us pretty quickly but I couldn’t shake my feelings for him no matter how often we tried to kill each other. “Because saving him means saving the others.” 

Leo looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know this guy, but might I just point out that this is Percy’s fatal flaw.” He flashed an apologetic look at me, as though he didn’t want to bring it up. “Your track record isn’t the greatest when it comes to stuff like that.” 

“Chronos said we could only save one,” Frank added. 

“How are you going to save those of us from Camp Jupiter? It took years for you to be led to us,” Michael Kahale, son of Venus, chimed in. “Are the Romans just supposed to die while you take your sweet time?” 

Nico spoke up again, “What about the demigods who died on their Quests? It wasn’t just the wars that took lives.” 

The cacophony of voices only grew as each demigod shouted to be heard. Their voices rose like waves and surrounded me with their doubts. But I’d been thinking about this for two days. A plan had taken root and I wanted to see it come to fruition. I needed to shut them up and make them listen to me. As I didn’t have any water on me, I did the next best thing. I stopped the blood from flowing through their veins. 

The shouting stopped immediately, though they still made noises of pain and fear as they realized something was wrong with them.  
I counted to ten and then slowly released my hold on their blood. If I did it too fast, they would all die. And wouldn’t that be oh so ironic. 

The demigods who were standing collapsed. The ones who had been sitting sank back in their thrones. Every eye was on me and not a single soul was unafraid of my powers. 

“I am Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, claimed by Neptune, trained by the Goddess Lupa, hero and savior of Olympus, praetor of the twelfth legion, counselor of the Poseidon Cabin. I am going to go back in time to save Luke Castellan and in doing so, I intend to save more lives. I swear on the River Styx that I’ll do everything in my power to prevent the needless deaths of our fellow demigods. If anyone here wishes to challenge me for the right to this Quest, then I dare you to try it right now.” 

My heart beat wildly in my chest. I didn’t really think that anyone would challenge me. But if there was a challenge, I knew who it would come from. The only other person in the room with a title and powers as impressive as mine was Nico. 

And everyone knew it. 

They looked between Nico and I. 

I only had eyes for Nico. I didn’t want another fight with Nico - and a physical one could kill everyone else in the room - but I wasn’t going to back down from this. Saving Luke was the only way, and I was the only person who could do it. 

Nico made his way over to me with slow, deliberate steps. He didn’t take his dark eyes off me. They still showed his fury like fire. But his expression didn’t match the anger he felt. He looked like he was sizing me up. He stopped only a foot away from me, far closer than I should have let him. His eyes searched mine. “You had better save her, Percy.” Nico took a step back and dropped into a kneeling position. He bowed his head. “Percy will go.” After a moment he got to his feet and returned to his throne. 

As the other demigods realized that they had no hope of beating me in a fight, they began to come up to me. 

Thalia came first and she bowed with grace. “I believe in you, Percy. You can save us all.” 

I nodded and made a mental note to turn her back into a human as soon as possible when I went back. 

Annabeth kneeled in front of me. She looked me in the eye. “I’m trusting you to save him, seaweed brain.” Her voice was tight with emotion. 

“I will,” I promised quietly. 

One by one the other demigods kneeled. Those who weren’t interested in Luke being saved, gave me the names of loved ones who had died. I memorized them all, though most of the Greek ones I already knew. 

Hazel was the last to come to me. “I know you’ll save Bianca,” Hazel began. “But if it’s possible, have Nico come and save me from the Underworld. Tell him I’m there.” Then she kneeled and bowed her head. 

“I will. I won’t forget,” I promised. “We’ll get you back even if I have to chain Death myself.” 

Chronos allowed me to privately say goodbye to the three people of my choosing. 

That’s how Annabeth, Hazel, Nico, and I wound up alone in the demigod throne room. One minute there were others and the next it was just the four of us. We were all jarred by Chronos’ powers. I hoped that he’d sent the other demigods home safely. 

“I’m sorry for pulling rank.” I opened my arms.

Nico was the first to step into my arms. 

Hazel and Annabeth followed seconds later. 

The group hug was nice. Even though I knew I was going to see them all again, it wouldn’t be the same. I let the hug go on for a long time. And then I got serious. “I need your help.”

Annabeth smiled fondly at me. “I thought there was a reason you chose us.”

“Didn’t you hear? It’s because we’re his favorites,” Nico teased. His arm was still slung around my waist. I don’t think he wanted to let me go. 

“I need a crash course from you three,” I said. 

“What do you want to know?” Hazel asked. 

I took a deep breath and then I told them. 

It took hours to learn everything I wanted to know. There was just so much information. I’d picked up a good deal of it myself in my many years but I wanted the refresher. We didn’t know where in time Chronos was going to dump me so I needed to be prepared. 

There was also a lot that I didn’t know. Between the three of them, they were able to either answer my questions or theorize. I didn’t dare pray that their theories were correct but I hoped with every cell of my being that they were. 

When we were done talking, we said goodbye for real. I hugged them all again. 

“Be safe, Percy. You’re messing with powerful forces,” Hazel warned.

I smiled. “Again?” I teased with a confidence I didn’t exactly feel. Sure, I’d gone up against some bad odds before. But nothing quite like this. 

Hazel smiled back but she still looked worried. “Bye, Percy.” She disappeared suddenly. 

Chronos must have sent her back. 

Annabeth was next. She kissed my cheek. “Don’t forget what we told you. And remember that I’ll help you, no matter when we are.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. My heart ached but it was a break that had been soothed by time.

Annabeth waved and then she was gone too.

It was just me and Nico now. He pulled me into a bone crushing hug. “I trust you, Percy. I know you’ll do it.” 

“Thanks, Nico.” I hugged him back. It occurred to me that he was the last person from my own timeline that I’d ever see. I wanted to hold him forever.

“I love you,” Nico whispered. 

“I love you too,” I said, because I did. I loved Nico so much. He was my ward, he was my friend, he was one of the many _could-have-beens_. “Take care of yourself, Nico.” It was a joke. I would be taking care of him - of all of them - all over again. 

Nico disappeared while he was still in my arms. 

I was left suddenly hugging air. It made my heart hurt. 

Chronos appeared a ways away from me. “It is time.” Something about his lack of expression bugged me.

“You knew it was going to be me,” I accused. I couldn’t be angry. This was literally the God of Time. I was sure he knew everything. 

“Yes.”

My curiosity got the better of me. “But why?” 

“Chthonie does not like you,” Chronos needlessly informed me. 

“You know Chthonie?” I asked. 

Chronos simply looked at me.

“Of course you do,” I amended. We hadn’t actually gone anywhere. Were we just going to stand there? “Are you...close?”

Chronos cocked his head. “She is almost as old as I am. I made the world for her from my seed.”

From his...oh gross. I tried not to think about how everything was made from this dude’s jizz. “Cool. So you’re doing this for Chthonie. Do the Gods know?” 

“The Gods are aware.” 

Something occurred to me. “Do they get to keep their memories too?”

“Only you will have the memories,” Chronos replied. 

“What about you?” I asked. 

Chronos fixed his eyes on me. They turned black and then small bursts of light showed in their inky darkness. He had galaxies in his eyes. “Farewell, Percy Jackson.” 

Everything went dark.


	2. I Start From The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy is twelve years old again but this time he's doing things his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you'll see shortly, some of the words in this fic are ripped word-for-word straight from the book. This will last for about three chapters and then we'll edge away from that. It wasn't until I wrote chapter two, that I realized I was basically rewriting The Lightning Thief but with...twists.

  
I opened my eyes to the sight of Grover being hit in the back of the head with chunks of peanut-butter-and-ketchup sandwich. 

Grover was my best friend but he didn’t look like the Satyr I’d left behind. This Grover was scrawny and his horns were so small that his curly hair still hid them. We didn’t share an empathy link yet. He winced when another piece of sandwich hit him. 

“I’m going to kill her,” I decided immediately. My oath on the River Styx was only to save _demigods_. The annoying, kleptomaniac known as Nancy Bobofit was only a mortal. I started to get up. 

Grover pulled me back to my seat. “You’re already on probation,” he reminded me. “You know who’ll get blamed if anything happens.”

For a second, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Why did probation from this school even matter? I was on a Quest, I had a mission from the God of Gods that...really didn’t make sense if I thought about it. I’d think more about it later, though. For now, I sat back down. 

I lifted my shirt to look at my abs. Oof. No sexy abs for me, just baby fat that I hadn’t managed to burn off yet. That would have to change soon. I reached into my pocket for Riptide only to find that the pen sword wasn’t there. Right. Of course it wasn’t. 

When was I, anyway? 

“Grover, what are we doing?” I asked him. 

Grover dodged a piece of Nancy’s lunch. He looked even more worried than when I announced my intentions to kill Nancy. “We’re on the Yancy school bus, Percy. We’re going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman artifacts.” Grover pulled food from his hair and looked at it longingly before dropping it on the ground. “Are you okay, Percy?” 

Yancy Academy meant that I was twelve again. Or as I liked to call it, that year my shitty life got even shittier. 

At that moment I remembered Mrs. Dodds. The little math teacher from Georgia routine was complete bullshit. Her real name was Alecto and she was one of Hades Furies. She must have been trying really hard to camouflage because even though I knew about the Mist, she still looked human. Mrs. Dodds caught me looking at her. 

I pointed two fingers towards my eyes and then pointed one at her; the universal sign for _I’m watching you._

Mrs. Dodds looked surprised by my boldness. Then she smiled a terrible, toothy grin. It was pure evil. 

I couldn’t wait to kill her again. 

As bloodthirsty as I was, I did wait for the appropriate time to kill Alecto. 

It was mostly out of necessity. Now that I knew what celestial bronze looked like, I saw that there was none in the museum. At this stage, Chiron was still masquerading as my Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner. I thought about just walking up to him and asking for Riptide, but then I’d have to answer a bunch of questions that I didn’t want to. I intended to keep how much I knew a secret. 

Which shouldn’t be hard because everyone thought I was stupid. 

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour, out in front of the class in his wheelchair, just like before. He guided us through big echoey galleries and, past marble statues that had seen better days, and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. 

Knowing what I knew about the Greeks and the corresponding Gods, it blew my mind that this stuff had lasted for three thousand years. 

We stopped by a _stele_, a thirteen-foot-tall grave marker for a girl about twelve years old. Last time I was here, Nancy and my classmates had annoyed me so much that I couldn’t concentrate on what Mr. Brunner was saying. This time, I tuned them out and just looked at the statue. Was she a demigod? How did she die? I should ask Chiron about it sometime. 

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele. 

“For Poseidon’s sake,” I spat. 

It came out louder than I meant it to. 

The whole group laughed but it was the nervous kind of laughter. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. “Mr. Jackson, did you have a comment?” His brown eyes gleamed with curiosity. 

“No, sir.” 

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. “Perhaps you’ll tell us what this picture represents.” 

I looked at the carving and couldn’t help the way my lip curled at the sight of it. “That’s Kronos eating his kids.” I paused, then tacked on, “Right?” 

“Yes,” Mr. Brunner said. “And he did this because…”

“Kronos is the king Titan. He’s a coward who's scared of his kids, the Gods. So he ate all of them except for baby Zeus. Because his wife hid Zeus and gave him a rock to eat instead.” _That tracks,_ I thought, _since both Zeus and rocks are hard and stupid._ “When Zeus grew up, he tricked Kronos into barfing up his siblings -”

“Eeew!” said one of the girls behind me. 

I rolled my eyes. “So there was a big fight between the Gods and the Titans and the Gods won.” I crossed my arms. “Praise Zeus.” I hoped that my sarcasm reached old thunder cock. 

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, “Like we’re going to use this in real life. Like it’s going to say on our job applications, ‘Please explain why Kronos ate his kids’.” 

“And why, Mr. Jackson,” Brunner said, “to paraphrase Miss Bobofit’s excellent question, does this matter in real life?”

“Busted,” Grover muttered. 

“Shut up,” Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. 

I thought about his question but couldn’t think of a good way to answer without outing myself. I shrugged. “I don’t know.” 

“I see.” Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. “Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan’s stomach. The Gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it’s time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?” 

The scythe. I knew it better as a sword called Backbiter. If Luke didn’t already have the deadly sword, then he would be getting it soon. 

“Mr. Jackson,” Mr. Brunner called me. 

I knew what was coming. I told Grover to go with the others. Then I turned around. “Sir?” 

“You must learn the answer to my question,” Mr. Brunner told me. 

The truth was that I knew the answer. I knew it better than Mr. Brunner could ever dare imagine. “About the Titans?” I asked, playing dumb.

He looked disappointed. “About real life. And how your studies apply to it.” 

“Oh.” 

“What you learn from me,” he said, “is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.” 

_Get in line_, I thought. Everyone expected the best from me, all the time. That was my whole life from this point onwards. As far as I could see, there was no way out of being the best. I was literally starting all over from the beginning, the hopes and prayers of my fellow demigods resting on my shoulders. The weight of that was similar to when I held the sky. At this rate, I was going to go gray before I even reached thirteen. 

I mumbled something about trying harder.

Mr. Brunner told me to go outside and eat my lunch. 

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing with black clouds. Since Christmas, we’d had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. Now a hurricane was blowing in. In other words, Zeus was throwing a major bitch fit and punishing the mortals for it as always. 

And he was stealing my mojo. Hurricanes were my thing. 

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. Even now that I was repeating everything, I still didn’t want to be associated with the jerks who pelted Lunchables crackers at pigeons or with the pickpocketing Nancy Bobofit. They were still loser freaks who couldn’t make it elsewhere. 

“Detention?” Grover asked. 

“Nah,” I said. “Not from Brunner.” I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about how I was going to get to Camp Half-Blood. So far everything was playing out almost identically to how it had before. The only difference was how I reacted to things. 

“Can I have your apple?” Grover asked.

I let him take it. 

Grover would have to be with me when I got to Camp Half-Blood so that he could get his searchers license. But if he got his license right away, then he would go look for Pan right away. I couldn’t rescue him if I was busy with the Master Bolt Quest. For the first time I realized something else too. When he made an empathy link with me, I would have to have him break it. He couldn’t find out what I was going to do. 

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table. 

Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover’s lap. “Oops.” She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray painted her face with liquid Cheetos. 

I stayed cooler than I did last time. The result would be the same but this time I intentionally dragged Nancy into the water. 

Nancy sat on her butt in the fountain screaming, “Percy pushed me!” 

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. 

Some of the kids were whispering: “Did you see-”

“-the water-”

“-like it grabbed her-”

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt and the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, because I’d finally done something she’d been waiting for all semester. “Now, honey-” 

“I know,” I grumbled. “Let’s get this over with.” I could barely keep the grin off my face. Sometimes I thought that Ares could be my dad because of how much I enjoyed slaying monsters. 

“Come with me,” Mrs. Dodds said. 

“Wait!” Grover yelped. “It was me. _I_ pushed her.” 

Mrs. Dodds glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. “I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood.” 

“But-”

“You _will_ stay here.” 

Grover looked at me desperately. 

I grinned. “It’s okay, man. Thanks for trying.” 

“Honey,” Mrs. Dodds barked at me. “Now.” 

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I smirked right back. 

That threw her through a loop. 

Mrs. Dodds was already at the top of the museum steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on. 

I went after Mrs. Dodds. I followed her deeper into the museum, keeping stride with her the entire time. While I walked, I whistled a tune that Nico used to hum under his breath. I knew Mrs. Dodds would recognize it because she was the Fury who had taken care of the Di Angelo siblings. 

We stopped in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty. 

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek Gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even though she looked like she was about to destroy the frieze - and me - I wasn’t scared. I simply looked back at her, waiting and mentally counting down until Mr. Brunner would show up. 

“You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said. 

I smiled. “You’d better get used to it.” 

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. “Did you really think you would get away with it?” 

Thunder shook the building. 

For a second, I thought that I’d already been caught. That maybe Chronos had omitted something from me. Then I remembered that she’d said the exact same thing the last time. She was just talking about me being the son of Poseidon. Not about my mission. I was so relieved that I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. It grew wider until all of my teeth showed. I squared my shoulders. “Come on, Alecto,” I taunted. “Are you really so eager to get back to Tartarus?” 

The Mist shattered at that moment. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched into talons. Her leather jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She already looked like a shriveled hag so her face didn’t change much except that she now had a mouth full of yellow fangs. 

I almost wished that I could play up my fear for her but the truth was, I was jaded as fuck. Maybe this was why demigods usually didn’t last into adulthood. We just stopped caring. A monster was a monster and I’d been slaying monsters for as long as I could remember. I counted the seconds. 

Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen. “What ho, Percy!” Mr. Brunner shouted and he tossed the pen through the air. Right on time. 

The Fury snarled, “Die, honey!” 

I dodged the talon slash and snatched the pen out of the air. When the pen hit my hand, it turned into a familiar sword. I stabbed Alecto in the back before she could so much as turn to attack me again. The sword went clean through her body as if she was made of water. “Say hi to Bob for me, Alecto,” I spat. 

Alecto exploded into golden powder. All that was left of the Fury was the smell of sulfur and her dying screech echoing in the large gallery. 

It was only then that I remembered Bob wasn’t Bob yet. He was still Lapetus, the Titan of Mortality, Pain, and Violent Death. I was going to have to do better than that if I wanted people to think I was normal. Well, normal for a demigod. 

I was alone. 

Riptide was a ballpoint pen in my hand. 

Mr. Brunner wasn’t there. 

I put Riptide in my pocket. This time, I wasn’t going to wait for a Quest to get my sword back. My hands shook but it wasn’t fear; it was exhaustion. I was out of shape. Even a small skirmish wore me out. There was a lot of work left to do. 

Thunder boomed overhead. 

I went back outside. 

It had started to rain. The water rejuvenated me. 

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, “I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt.” 

I ignored her and went to sit with Grover. “It could have been worse,” I told him. 

I took a couple days to think about my next move. Now that I had Riptide and Alecto was back in Tartarus for a few weeks, I didn’t have many reasons to stay at this school. Graduating school period didn’t even make my list of things to worry about. After I saved everyone, I could get my GED and figure things out from there. But right now when I thought about a life after my mission was complete, it was just foggy. 

Grover kept watching me like he was worried about me. I appreciated his concern but it was unnecessary. 

Between him and Mr. Brunner, they hardly let me out of their sight. I knew they were talking about me behind my back. They didn’t think I was acting right for someone who had seen a Fury for the first time. 

They also tried very hard to get Riptide from me but I refused to part with the sword. Their methods went from blatantly asking for a pen to trying to steal it out of my pocket. At this point, I was fairly sure that Riptide would reappear in my pocket even if they did try to take it. But I wouldn’t let them have it. 

Riptide was mine. 

A few days after the museum incident, I went to Grover. “I need to go home,” I told him. 

“What are you talking about, Percy? We can’t just leave school.” Grover looked nervous about the prospect. I guess he thought that between himself and Chiron, they could protect me from any monsters. 

I let my worry show. It wasn’t worry for my mom - though now that I thought about it, I worried about her too - but rather the worry I felt over my task. “Please Grover, it’s an emergency. I _have_ to go home. Tonight. Will you come with me?” As much as I wanted to get this show started, I couldn’t leave without Grover. He had to escort me over the Camp boundary. 

Grover still looked hesitant. 

“You’ll get to skip exams,” I tempted. 

That did it. “I guess a trip to your moms couldn’t hurt.” 

“Great,” I said. I held up two tickets for the next Greyhound to Manhattan. “Let’s go.” 

Grover worried the entire walk to the bus stop. He didn’t stop worrying once we got on the bus, acting all nervous and fidgety. Grover kept glancing down the aisle, watching the other passengers. 

Last time, I’d questioned him. This time I didn’t bother to. I knew what he was looking for. The good news was that Alecto and her sisters weren’t on this bus. 

We made it out to that middle-of-nowhere country road. There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and drove the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. After a few minutes of clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we’d all have to get off. 

Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. 

It was a relief to get away from the smell of sulfur. Twice in one week was more than enough of that smell. 

We were on a stretch of country road. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. 

Sitting in rocking chairs beneath the shade of a maple tree, was three old ladies. They were knitting a ginormous pair of socks. The socks were so big that they looked like they were for Godzilla. Or a real life Titan. They all had ancient, pale faces that were wrinkled like leather. Their silver hair was tied back in bandanas and their bony arms stuck out of bleached cotton dresses. They looked right at me. 

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of gold and silver scissors that were long bladed like shears.

Grover caught his breath. “We’re getting on the bus. Come on,” he told me. He pried open the door and climbed inside. “Come on!” he said again. 

I stayed back. 

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yard and I heard the _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. 

“HE’S MINE!” I shouted at them, knowing that they would hear it. 

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. 

The passengers cheered. 

I finally joined Grover on the bus. I remember the first time I saw them, I’d felt ill. Now, I didn’t feel anything. 

Grover was shivering and his teeth were chattering. He dabbed at his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?” 

I couldn’t very well tell him that I’d seen the Fates. “You mean the old ladies? They’re not like Mrs. Dodds, are they?”

Grover bleated nervously. “Just tell me what you saw.” 

“The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn.” 

Grover closed his eyes and made a gesture to ward off evil. “You saw her snip the cord.” He sounded like he wanted me to deny it. 

“Yeah. So?” 

“This is not happening,” Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. “I don’t want this to be like last time.” 

“It won’t be,” I promised. 

Grover looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking out the flowers I’d like best for my laurel wreath. 

Confession time: I was doing this way earlier than last time. It was only May 13th.

I had no idea if things were going to play out the same once I started messing with the timeline. The Greyhound to Manhattan had been a sort of test. It was a month early yet I’d still encountered the Fates on the trip. That seemed to bode well for the rest of my plans. 

As soon as we got to the bus terminal, Grover made a beeline for the restroom. 

I waited for him even though I was nervous about bringing him to my mom’s apartment. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of him, it was that Gabe Ugliano was there. Gabe was an asshole of the highest degree. At least for a mortal. Unfortunately, he was also my stepdad again. For five years, I had lived in a blissful world where Gabe Ugliano didn’t exist. Once my mom used Medusa’s head to turn him into a statue, it was actually really easy to forget about Smelly Gabe. I had bigger fish to fry than some jackass mortal. 

But. See, even though I was going after bigger fish, I still had to fry him. 

Before our bus trip back to the city, I’d run through some scenarios. A lot of them involved me filling Gabe’s lungs with water and letting him die on our floor amongst the trash he always left there. But then we would have a body to dispose of. I didn’t want to risk any evidence. Using Medusa’s head was going to be my best bet. 

My hope now was that we - _I_ \- would be attacked at my mom’s apartment. Not by Gabe, although I still wasn’t sure that I could leave without kicking him in the balls. No, I was sure that the Minotaur would be on my trail now that I wasn’t at Yancy academy. 

Grover and I got a taxi to my mom’s apartment. “East One-hundred-and-fourth and First,” I told the driver. 

Grover was still muttering about my impending death. “Why does this always happen? Why does it always have to be sixth grade?” 

As for me, I was doing great. If dealing with crippling anxiety could be called doing great. I could feel a tingling in my spine that meant I was being hunted. Only a few hours until the Minotaur caught up to me. By then, mom should be off work and everything would go according to plan. Probably. Hopefully. Our rented beach house was closer to Half-Blood Hill than mom’s apartment was. The Minotaur ran so fast. Would we really have time? 

It wasn’t too late to go back to school. I could still call this off, wait until after exams. I could follow the script. Bianca was the first demigod who died in front of me. There was no way I was going to let that happen again. I wouldn’t let her down, I wouldn’t let Nico down. 

The clear skies had turned black with thick cloud cover. I couldn’t hear thunder yet but the hair on my arms stood up. 

I walked into our little apartment with Grover by my side. Smelly Gabe was in the living room, hand raised and ready to hit my mom. Rage swept over me so quickly that my mind went blank. I crossed the room and punched Gabe in the back of his ugly bald head. 

Gabe yelled in surprise but he didn’t go down. 

Gods, I needed to get my perfect body back. 

Gabe turned to me and raised his fist to hit me. 

Two things happened at once: mom and Grover both lunged. Mom tackled me out of the way. We landed in a pile on the floor. Grover’s shoe slipped off, his hoof came up, and he kicked Gabe square in the face. I heard the crunch of a broken nose. 

Gabe went down hard. His nose bled all over the filthy carpet. He was unconscious. 

“Percy!” Mom said, holding me in her arms. She had a dark bruise forming on her cheek. “What are you doing here?” 

Grover put his shoe back on and cast me a nervous look. 

I was so enraged that my entire body shook. How dare that son of a bitch. That greasy, slimey, good for nothing - 

“Percy!” Mom shook me. 

I blinked. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked again. “You’re supposed to be at school. And you brought Grover too.” Her brow was creased with worry. How could she worry about me when I left her alone with this monster? 

For a heartbeat, I forgot my lie. I stuttered. “Mom, some weird stuff has been happening lately. I think it has to do with dad.” 

That clearly wasn’t what either of them had been expecting me to say. Grover’s face paled. 

Mom hugged me tight but not before I saw the anxiety in her eyes. “What happened, Percy?” 

I looked between the two of them. Then I said, “I killed a Fury.” 

The storm broke at that second, thunder so loud that the walls shook and rain pelted like bullets against the roof. 

Grover looked like he was going to faint. 

Mom gasped. She got up immediately, grabbed her purse and the keys to Gabe’s camaro. “We need to leave. Now.” She slipped her shoes on. “Get in the car. Both of you. Go!” 

I ran out into the rain with Grover on my heels. If I wanted to, I could have kept the water off us. But as far as they knew, I didn’t know about my dad. So I let myself get wet. It gave me the energy I would need later. 

Grover’s feet slipped under him on the stairs and the shoes slid off. He bleated with fear. 

I spun around and helped him to his feet. “C’mon, man!” I ignored his cloven hooves and the smell of wet wool. 

We got to the camaro and slid into the back seat. We dripped water onto the leather seats. 

Mom got in, threw the car into drive, and tore out of the parking lot. “Tell me everything that happened, Percy.” 

So I told her about Alecto. I made it sound like I’d just gotten lucky. 

“Do you still have the sword?” Mom asked. She was driving like a woman possessed…or like the Grey Sisters. 

“It’s in my pocket,” I assured her. 

We weren’t being chased as closely as last time but mom must have felt the same thing I did because she drove fast. We were out of the city in record time. 

“Percy, the bus,” Grover reminded me. Then, without waiting for me to speak, he told my mom, “He saw the Fates cut the string. They only do that when...when someone’s about to die.” 

“I’m not about to die.” 

“I didn’t say _you_ were. I said ‘someone’.” 

“No one in this car is going to die.” 

“Percy -”

“Boys!” my mom said. 

She drove in tense silence for a few miles. The windshield wipers were practically useless in the heavy downpour. Every few seconds, she would jerk on the wheel because the wind was so strong we were being blown off the road. 

An ambulance with screaming sirens and flashing lights drove by us. 

In the red light, I saw fear reflected in Grover’s eyes. He chewed on his shirt. 

I jerked my chin towards his shaggy goat legs. “So what are you from the waist down? A donkey?” I said it to lighten the mood, to take Grover’s mind off of our situation. 

_“Blaa-ha-ha!”_ Grover did his irritated laugh again. “Goat!”

“What?” I feigned ignorance. 

“I’m a _goat_ from the waist down. There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!” 

I patted his arm. “Sorry, man.” 

We were in the country now, where the darkness and isolation were oppressive things against the car windows. 

Over the sounds of the storm, I heard something that made my hair stand on end. It was a distant bellow, an angry tortured sound. 

The engine roared as mom put the pedal to the floor. “Seat belts!” She snapped at us. 

I hurriedly put mine on and helped Grover with his. “Are we gonna make it?” I asked her. From where I sat, I could see the speedometer crawling towards ninety. 

“Only a few miles more.” Mom’s voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. 

I was more scared of dying in the crash than I was of the Minotaur. If we got struck by lightning and crashed at this speed, none of us would make it out alive. “Mom,” I said, “we’re going too fast.” 

“Another mile,” Mom said. “Please, please, please,” she chanted under her breath. I think she was praying to my dad. 

Lightning struck close to the car. A tree went up in flames only to be doused by the heavy rainfall. 

“Mom!” I shouted. “Slow down!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. “We’re going to crash!” 

Mom slammed on the brakes. 

There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!_, and our car swerved. I felt at once weightless and crushed at the same time. The car rolled off the road and into a muddy ditch. There was a crunch like someone had crumpled the world's largest soda can. 

I was hanging upside down, still secured by my seatbelt. My hips and stomach hurt all the way down to my bones. My neck felt rubbed raw. “Ow,” I grimaced. 

“Percy!” Mom shouted. 

“I’m okay,” I wheezed. I tried to touch my neck but the seat belt was partially imbedded in my skin. Fuck. I tried to shake off the daze. We needed to get out of the car. 

“Grover?” 

Grover hung from his seatbelt, a big motionless lump. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth.

I shook his shoulder. 

“Food,” Grover groaned. 

“He’ll be okay,” I told mom. 

“Percy,” my mom said, “we have to get out of…” her voice faltered. 

I knew what she was seeing without looking. A lumbering figure of huge proportions. The dark silhouette of a fuzzy, horned man. I swallowed hard. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. 

“Percy,” mom was deadly serious. “Get out of the car.” 

My seat belt wouldn’t unbuckle so I pulled Riptide from my pocket. I used it to cut the strap holding my waist. Unfortunately, that meant I partially clotheslined myself with the strap across my neck. I yelped as it dug harder into my flesh and then cut it away too. I was more careful cutting Grover down. We landed in the muddy water on the roof of the car. The hole Zeus had busted in it was still smoking and burning hot. 

Grover was barely conscious. I had to hold him up otherwise he’d drown in the water filling the car. 

The doors wouldn’t open but the glass had mostly broken out of them. 

“Go out the window!” Mom told me. “Percy, you have to run. Do you see that big tree?”

In another flash of lightning, I saw Thalia’s tree. It was a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized Pune at the crest of the nearest hill. We were so close. 

“That’s the property line,” mom told me. “Get over the hill and you’ll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don’t look back. Yell for help. Don’t stop until you reach the door.” 

I looked at her and my heart hurt to leave her. “What about you?”

“I’ll be okay, Percy.” Mom’s eyes were sad when she smiled at me. “I’m not hurt bad.” 

My ears perked at that. “You’re hurt?” I asked. I propped Grover up the best I could then crawled over to her. There was blood dripping from her neck. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt,” I mumbled. 

Mom laughed as though I was being ridiculous. 

I could help her. I knew I could. The water here was muddy but it was still water. “Close your eyes,” I begged her. “Close your eyes and then I’ll go.” 

Mom closed her eyes, but I think it had more to do with the pain she was in. I carefully cut her free and then I took the rain from the sky and healed her wounds. “Percy?” She asked me in wonder. 

“We’re going. I’m sorry, that’s all I can do. I’m sorry.” I crawled back to Grover. I would have to go through the window and pull him out after me. “Mom, I love you.”

“I love you too, Percy.” 

I crawled on my belly into the rain. My hips and neck hurt so badly that I gritted my teeth. But I couldn’t heal myself. I needed to show up to Camp with injuries. Outside of the car, the rain and wind whipped my hair around. It was so loud that I could barely hear the bullish snorts of the Minotaur as it lumbered closer to us. I reached into the car for Grover and dragged him out by his furry ankles.

“Food,” Grover groaned a little louder. 

Grover was surprisingly light. I dragged him away from the car and slapped him awake. “Grover!” 

Grover blinked. “Percy?” He shook his head and groaned in pain. “What happened?”

“It’s behind us,” I said. “Get up! We have to get to Camp!” 

Grover struggled to his feet. He had an arm slung over my shoulder. We hobbled to the road. 

I paused to look back. 

The Minotaur was still advancing towards the car. 

What did he want?

Wait. 

He was going to throw the car at us. 

“MOM! GET OUT OF THE CAR!” I started running back to her. 

“PERCY NO!” Grover shouted. 

I slipped and slid in the mud towards the Minotaur and my mom. I had to reach her first. I _had_ to. She couldn’t die because of me. “HEY UGLY!” I screamed over the wind and thunder. “LOOKING FOR ME?!” 

Riptide was still in my hand. I got between the car that held my mom and the Minotaur. 

The Minotaur charged fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I ran. 

My legs tensed. I leaped straight up, kicking off from the Minotaur’s head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck. 

A millisecond later, the monster’s head slammed into the car tire. He struggled to free his horn from the hubcap. The Minotaur shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. His horn broke off and he bellowed in agony. 

On shaky feet, I stood on his back. I nearly lost his balance a few times and almost stabbed myself in the leg with Riptide. But all it took was one lucky strike. I plunged Riptide deep into the Minotaur’s skull. 

The Minotaur began to disintegrate like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind. 

I fell off his back and onto the ground. 

The rain stopped. 

The Minotaur’s horn was still stuck in the hubcap where it had broken off. 

I rolled onto my hands and knees and looked into the car. My mom disappeared in a flash of shimmering, golden light. So Hades had taken her anyway. “I’ll get you back,” I promised between gasps for breath. 

Grover appeared by my side. His usual gait was made unsteady by the shaking of his legs. He looked pale as a sheet and his curly hair was flattened against his head so that I could see his small horns. “P-Percy, we have to go.” 

I used the car to pull myself to my feet. Taking the Minotaur horn was an afterthought. I slung my arm around him and together we hobbled up the hill. 

We walked past Thalia’s tree and across the border into Camp Half-Blood. We were covered in mud and blood, we both smelled like livestock. My knees were shaking. My body felt broken. We staggered down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. 

I collapsed onto the wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me. Moths flew around a yellow light, and the stern bearded face of Chiron came into view. My gaze shifted and Annabeth came into view. Her hair was curled like a princess’. Her grey eyes were cool and calculating. “He’s the one. He must be.” 

“Silence, Annabeth,” Chiron said. “He’s still conscious. Bring him inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Luke shows up in the next chapter. 
> 
> By the by, I am a complete fool and didn't realize until _last week_ that the Fates were cutting _Luke's_ string and not Percy's. My whole life, I've just lived a lie where I assumed they'd been wrong somehow. I do think it's very interesting that Luke's string is blue, though. Anyway, I had to change what Percy yells at them, which was at first, "false advertising." Because that's the kind of hubris Percy would show as a jaded 20-year-old who is over everyone's shit. __
> 
> _  
_Also, some of you were concerned, but I've already written the first five chapters and am currently working on chapter six. The reason I'm only submitting every Saturday is to give myself time to write more chapters so that there isn't a huge delay between them. And the first thirteen chapters are outlined._  
_


	3. I Try To Seduce My Cousin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy made it to Camp Half-Blood in one piece. Yay! Now he just has to convince Luke not to kill him. Easy-peasy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want everyone to know that it takes over a half hour to format every chapter. So exhausting. 
> 
> But Luke is here! And I'm totally living vicariously through Percy. Luke was my crush when I was twelve and the books first came out.

Annabeth didn’t get a chance to question me this time because I refused to open my eyes until I smelled strawberries on the breeze. 

When I did open my eyes, I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. I saw a tall drink beside me and hurried to pick it up. It tasted like mom’s homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. 

Only after I finished the Nectar, did I look to see Grover leaning against the porch railing. He wore blue jeans, Converse hi-tops, and a bright orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. “You saved my life,” Grover said. “I, well, I hung onto this for you.” Reverently, he placed the shoebox in my lap.

Inside was a black and white bull’s horn, the base ragged from being torn off. 

“Thanks, man.” I figured I should start asking questions so that he didn’t get suspicious. “So. All of that really happened? My mom is really gone?” 

Grover looked down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, Percy.” 

My grief didn’t hit hard because I knew that she was in the Underworld. Ironically, it was safer for her there than at home with Gabe. Just knowing that, I felt like I could cry. 

“How do you feel?” Grover asked. 

“Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards.” 

“That’s good,” he said. “That’s good. I don’t think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff.” 

Now that he mentioned it, my hips didn’t hurt anymore. Neither did my neck. I touched the place the seat belt had dug into my skin. There was a thin line of marred skin; my first scar in this new body. 

Grover took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the tabe. “Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting.” 

I held onto the Minotaur horn as I walked around the farmhouse's wraparound porch. My legs felt a little wobbly but I managed to keep my chin up and not trip over my own feet. 

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. Annabeth leaned against the porch railing. The man facing me was small and porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. 

I recognized him immediately and did my best to keep the sneer off my face. 

“That’s Mr. D,” Grover murmured to me. “He’s the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that’s Annabeth Chase. She’s just a camper but she’s been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron…” He pointed to the guy whose back was to me. 

“Hi Chiron,” I greeted my old Latin teacher, ignoring both Annabeth and the God before me. 

Chiron turned and smiled at me. His brown eyes held a mischievous glint. “Ah, good, Percy,” he said. “Now we have four for pinochle.” He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D. 

Mr. D looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don’t expect me to be glad to see you.” He began to shuffle the cards. 

As Mr. D was the first God that I’d actually physically encountered, it was good to see that he was still playing his role. “Thanks,” I said as I sat down. 

“Annabeth?” Chiron called. 

She came forward and Chrion introduced us. “This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don’t you go check on Percy’s bunk? We’ll be putting him in Cabin Eleven for now.” 

Annabeth said, “Sure, Chiron.” 

What a relief that they were still putting me in the Hermes Cabin. That meant that Grover hadn’t seen me heal my mom before we got out of the car. 

Annabeth glanced at the Minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. “You drool when you sleep.” Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her. 

_Nope,_ I thought, _didn’t miss that whatsoever._

“I must say, Percy,” Chiron faced me, “I’m glad to see you alive. It’s been a long time since I’ve made a house call to a potential camper. I’d hate to think I’ve wasted my time.”

Wouldn’t he be surprised. “House call?” 

“My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a look-out. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to...ah, take a leave of absence.” 

“You came to Yancy just to teach me?” I asked. 

Chiron nodded. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that’s always the first test.” 

“Grover,” Mr. D said impatiently, “are you playing or not?” 

“Yes, sir!” Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair. 

“You _do_ know how to play pinochle?” Mr. D eyed me suspiciously. 

“Yes, sir,” I said. I’d played the stupid game often enough because of Mr. D in the past. 

“Well,” he told me, “it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all _civilized_ young men to know the rules.” Mr. D delt the cards. 

Was he just an ass no matter what anyone said? 

I looked at Dionysus. “Mr. D...does that stand for something?” 

Mr. D stopped mid deal. He looked at me like I’d just belched loudly. “Young man, names are powerful things. You don’t just go around using them for no reason.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” I hoped he choked on my sarcasm. 

He returned to dealing the cards. 

Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile. 

A few seconds went by before I said, “Does it stand for Dick?” 

Grover looked like he was going to faint. 

Mr. D turned to look at me straight on and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straightjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life. 

“Would you like to test me, child?” he said quietly. 

“No thanks, Dionysus,” I said calmly. The truth was, I’d seen that whole schtick before. It was impressive but honestly, it was less impressive this time around. I was friends with a shape-shifter. Pollux and Castor could strangle people with vines if they wanted. My own bloodlust was enough to scare even my closest friends. “Sir,” I added before he decided he was going to vaporize me. 

The fire died a little. “Figured it out, huh? This one isn’t as stupid as he acts.” He turned back to the card game. 

Apparently neither was Dionysus. 

Chiron studied me curiously. I’d never showed much aptitude for the Gods while he was teaching my class. “Did your mother tell you anything?” 

I went with the safe answer. “She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn’t leave. She wanted to keep me close to her.”

“Typical,” Mr. D snorted. “That’s how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?”

I did. 

“I’m afraid there’s too much to tell,” Chiron said. “I’m afraid our usual orientation film won’t be sufficient.” 

Even after living here for seven years, I still hadn’t seen this mysterious orientation film. I almost wanted to watch whatever abomination they’d managed to cook up. Who knew how old it was. 

“No,” Chiron decided. Then he began to explain things to me all over again. We went back and forth with him playing educated scholar and me playing confused student.  


Chiron won the card game. 

Grover ate a Diet Coke can. 

Finally, Chiron stood up from his wheelchair. He shook out his white hindquarters and stomped his hooves a few times. “What a relief,” the centaur said. “I’d been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let’s meet the other Campers.”

We walked past the volleyball court and the strawberry fields. All around me, I saw faces that I recognized. It was hard not to call out to them. He took me to the woods that were stocked with monsters to hunt, although he omitted that part. “Do you have your own sword and shield?” 

“I don’t have a shield,” I answered. Riptide was still in my pocket and I wasn’t about to hand it over. 

Chiron’s brown eyes told me that he knew I still had Riptide. Thankfully, he didn’t ask for the sword back. “I think a size five will do. I’ll visit the armory later.” 

We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (where I was reminded that I needed to add Blackjack to my growing list of friends to rescue), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the battle arena. He pointed out the outdoor pavilion that was the mess hall. 

Finally, he showed me the Cabins. My heart raced so hard that I thought it might burst. Before, I’d only seen a few of the other Campers. Now that we were in the U of the Cabins, there were campers everywhere. I kept my face politely neutral. 

And then I saw it. Cabin Three. I walked over to the long, low Cabin. It’s walls were rough gray stone, studded with pieces of shell and coral. I went into the open doorway and breathed in the salty scent of a sea breeze. The abalone walls glowed and the silk sheets on the bed were blue. I was home. 

Chiron put his hand on my shoulder. “Come along, Percy. Annabeth is waiting for us.” 

Annabeth was reading a book in front of the last Cabin, number Eleven. When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was thinking about how to best beat me in a fight. 

“Annabeth,” Chiron said, “I have masters’ archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Cabin Elven,” Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. “Make yourself at home.” He galloped away toward the archery range. 

I stood in the doorway, looking at the huge number of kids in sleeping bags on the floor. There was a desolate, sad aura to them even as they sized me up. I recognized a lot of the kids - Butch, son of Iris, Clovis, son of Hypnos, Laurel and Holly, daughters of Nike - and anger flared up inside of me. How dare they be treated like this? Like leftovers, like unwanted pets tucked away in the corner. Out of sight and out of mind but fully aware of how unloved and unwanted they were. 

“Well?” Annabeth prompted. “Go on.” 

This time, I didn’t trip going into Cabin Eleven. 

“Percy Jackson, meet Cabin Eleven,” Annabeth announced. 

Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, asked, “Regular or undetermined?” 

“Undetermined,” Annabeth said.

Everyone groaned. 

I wondered if I should correct her. I knew I was Poseidon’s son and to be honest, I didn’t want to sleep in here again. I was going to say something but then Luke stepped into view. 

Luke was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, and sandals. The leather necklace around his neck had five different-colored clay beads. 

It wasn’t until I saw Luke again that I knew I was going to break down. I nearly sobbed at the sight of him but barely managed to keep it in check. My throat tightened. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to kiss him. 

“Now now, campers. That’s what we’re here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there.” Luke said with a warm smile. The scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw shifted when he smiled. 

I’d rather share his bed. Or better yet, get him out of the crowded Hermes Cabin and into my solitary one.

“This is Luke,” Annabeth said in a tone I hadn’t heard for a long time. “He’s your counsellor for now.” She was blushing. 

I walked up to Luke in a daze. When I was right in front of him, I stood on my tiptoes - I was so short now - and kissed his jaw just over his scar. I didn’t trust myself to speak. 

Luke looked stunned. His mouth was open. 

“Aphrodite’s son?” Someone that sounded like Katie Gardiner asked in the silence that followed. 

I stepped back from Luke with reluctance and didn’t look anyone in the eye. Apparently I wasn’t going to hit him or yell at him. I still felt like I should say something to him but I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t give me away. No one could catch on. Not yet. 

Annabeth looked like she wanted to hit me. Her expression was hard, her gray eyes like steel. 

I looked around at the campers’ faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets. 

“Come on,” Annabeth grabbed my wrist. “I’ll show you the volleyball court.” 

“I’ve already seen it.”

“Come on!” Annabeth dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of Cabin Eleven laughing behind me. 

I looked over my shoulder and saw Luke, still staring at me, touching his scar where I’d kissed him. 

I was glad that Annabeth got me out of there before I’d made a bigger fool of myself. I should have just let myself trip into the Cabin and dealt with that humiliation. Now the entire Cabin knew that I had a thing for Luke and soon the whole Camp would hear about it. 

It had only been a few minutes in his presence, but I already needed a break from Luke. I had to get my emotions back under control. 

When we were a few feet away from the Cabin, Annabeth rounded on me. “Jackson, you have to do better than that.” 

I prayed for patience. “What?” 

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, “I can’t believe I thought you were the one.” 

I prayed a little harder for that patience. Annabeth always managed to get under my skin. 

“Do you know how many kids at this Camp wish they’d had your chance?” 

This time, I didn’t think she was talking about the Minotaur. “What’s your problem?” I snapped. Whoever was in charge of doling out the patience today should be fired. But it made me wonder; just how many kids here _did_ have a crush on Luke? What was my competition like? I never thought I would have to fight my ex-girlfriend over a boy.

“To fight the Minotaur! What do you think I’m talking about?” Her face was scarlet so it was pretty obvious about what she was talking about. 

“He was only killed,” I retorted. “Everyone knows monsters don’t die.” Unless they come shaped like demigods. 

Before this could turn into a full-fledged fight, a husky voice yelled, “Well! A newbie!” 

Perfect.

I looked over. Clarisse from the Ares Cabin was sauntering towards us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets. My hand slid into the pocket containing Riptide. There was no way these losers were going to so much as drag me a foot, let alone to the bathroom. 

“Clarisse,” Annabeth sighed. “Why don’t you go polish your spear or something?”

“Sure, Miss Princess,” Clarisse said. “So I can run you through with it Friday night.” 

_“Erre es korakas!”_ Annabeth cursed. “You don’t stand a chance.”

“We’ll pulverize you.” Clarisse said but her eye twitched. She wasn’t so sure she could follow through on her threat. She turned towards me. “Who’s this little runt?”

I wasn’t _that_ short. 

“Percy Jackson,” Annabeth said. “Meet Clarisse, daughter of Ares.” 

“Well that explains the smell,” I said dryly. Technically, I should be networking right now. But man, I just couldn’t resist. 

Clarisse growled. “We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy.” 

“Percy.”

“Whatever. Come on, I’ll show you.” 

I tossed the Minotaur horn to Annabeth and drew Riptide simultaneously. I pointed the glowing sword directly at Clarisse’s throat. If she even leaned too close to me, it would go right through her. “I think I’ll pass.” 

Clarisse’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “Do you even know what you’re doing with that?” But her voice betrayed her by wavering at the end. 

A slow smile spread across my face. “Want to find out?” I invited. 

“Percy -” Annabeth started. 

“Stay out of this, Princess,” I spat without taking my eyes off Clarisse. 

The other Ares girls were inching to go around me and ambush me from behind. 

I shifted my weight and Riptide drew blood. “You three. Don’t even think about it or I’ll give Clarisse a new mouth.” 

Clarisse looked into my eyes. She took a step backwards. She kept retreating but she didn’t turn her back on me. “You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead.” 

“You want to be decapitated, Clarisse? Close your mouth,” I snarled at her. 

Her friends had to hold her back. The fit of rage came on so quickly. They dragged Clarisse back towards Cabin Five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet. 

I didn’t put Riptide away until they were within the boundaries of their Cabin. 

Annabeth just stared at me. 

“What?” I demanded. “What are you thinking?” 

“I’m thinking,” she said slowly, “that I want you on my team for capture the flag.” 

I laughed. 

Word of the incident in the courtyard spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about my sword. Most of them gave me a wide berth. They didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of Riptide. 

Annabeth showed me a few more places and explained some of the Camp rules to me. Finally, we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the Cabins. “I’ve got training to do,” Annabeth said flatly. “Dinner’s at seven-thirty. Just follow your Cabin to the mess hall.” 

I watched her go and then looked into the lake. 

Two Naiads looked back at me. They looked like teenage girls, just sitting cross-legged at the base of the peer, about twenty feet below. Minnows darted in and out of their long floating brown hair. They smiled and waved at me as if I were a long-lost friend. 

I smiled and waved back. I’d spent a lot of time getting to know the Naiads in the lake while I’d lived in it. I wanted to dive into the water to talk to them but resisted the temptation. Instead, I headed back to the Cabins. 

Back at Cabin Eleven, I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down to watch the other campers talk and horse around. 

Luke came over to join me only minutes after my arrival. He tossed me a sleeping bag. “Found you a sleeping bag.” He sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. “And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store.” 

“Thanks,” I said. 

He side-eyed me. “Tough first day?” 

I sighed. “Does it get easier?” I asked, a desperate laugh slipping past my lips. 

Luke gave me a pitying look. “No,” he admitted bitterly. 

“So your dad is Hermes?” I asked, trying to get him to open up some. 

Luke pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and I flinched involuntarily. My heart skipped a beat at the sight of a weapon in Luke’s hands. But he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. “Yeah.” He studied his sandal intently. “Hermes.” 

“The wing-footed messenger guy.” My heart was beating normally again. 

“That’s him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That’s why you’re here, enjoying Cabin Eleven’s hospitality. Hermes isn’t picky about who he sponsors.” Luke sounded so bitter that I wondered how no one had picked up on the fact he was working for the enemy. 

“Can you use the shadow roads?” I asked and immediately regretted it. 

Luke’s brow furrowed. “Shadow roads? How do you know about those?”

My cheeks turned pink. I dropped my gaze to the floor between us. “I read about them.” 

“I’ve never tried to take the shadow roads,” Luke said. 

“You ever meet your dad?”

“Once.”

Luke looked up and managed a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they’re mostly good people. After all, we’re extended family, right? We take care of each other.” 

Could I push my luck by trying to kiss him again? No, he had a knife in his hand. I’d probably get stabbed. I shifted so that our biceps brushed. “Annabeth keeps talking about me being ‘the one’ What was that all about?” 

Luke folded his knife. I should have risked kissing him again. “I hate prophecies.” 

Same. 

“What do you mean?”

His face twisted around the scar. “Let’s just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn’t allowed any more quests. Annabeth’s been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her already knew her fate. He’d had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn’t tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn’t destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to the Camp.” 

“She’s going to be disappointed in me,” I confided in Luke. Annabeth from the past would be disappointed in me if she knew how much I was going to fuck her over this time around. 

“Welcome to the club,” Luke said. 

I snorted. “She’s head over heels for you, Luke.” 

Luke hummed. “Don’t worry too much about it, kid. Now, come on, it’s dinnertime.” 

The moment he said it, a conch shell was blown. 

Luke stood up. “Eleven, fall in!”

After dinner and the sing-along, the conch shell blew again to send us back to our Cabins. I was exhausted and sleep tempted me. It might have had something to do with sleeping beside Clovis. I struggled to stay awake, and fought against the urge to sleep. I had to get closer to Luke. 

Once everyone else in the Cabin was asleep - and really, with several children of Hypnos crowded in, it didn’t take long - I picked up my sleeping bag and the Minotaur horn. Carefully, I picked my way around the sleeping bodies and to Luke’s bunk. I wanted to crawl into bed with him. I also wanted to stab him in his sleep. _This time, I wouldn’t have to stab him to save him,_ I told myself. 

I slipped my sleeping bag beneath Luke’s bunk and then crawled into it. The space was fairly empty for belonging to a thief; only a few stray trinkets lay beneath the bed. There was enough space that I could sleep on my side if I wanted to. Finally, I closed my eyes and let sleep take me. 

“Luke, the new guy is gone,” Holly said. 

“I bet the cleaning harpies ate him,” Laurel added. 

The bed above me creaked. “I doubt he left the Cabin,” Luke said. His voice was hoarse and he sounded exhausted. 

Butch added, “You didn’t tell him to stay in the Cabin, though.” 

“Maybe he’s a runaway,” Miranda chimed in. 

There was silence after that. 

A lot of Campers had been runaways. I’d never heard of anyone except for Luke running away from Camp Half-Blood but I was sure that it had happened sometime in the past. 

I kept my mouth shut. Let them worry a little. It would be good for them. Besides, I didn’t want everyone to find out where I was sleeping while they were all in the Cabin. Let them find out later. 

Luke clapped his hands. “Everyone, go do your usual morning chores. I’ll find him.” 

The other members and visitors of the Hermes Cabin put their things away and then filed out for the day. There were comments about what could have happened to me and the general consensus was that despite fighting a Fury and the Minotaur, I’d been eating by cleaning harpies. Frankly, it was a little offensive. As if I would be eaten by a harpy. My half-brother’s girlfriend was a harpy. 

Luke didn’t move for several long minutes. When he did, it was only to turn in a slow circle. Then, he approached his bunk and dropped down onto his hands and knees. “There you are.” 

I yawned and opened my eyes to see Luke’s handsome face looking back at me. “Morning already?” I asked. My voice was raspy with sleep. 

“My Cabin isn’t so crowded that we need to shove kids under beds.” Luke paused. “Yet,” he added darkly. 

"I don’t like being in the open,” I admitted. It was more or less true. I always slept better with a wall at my back. Sleeping beneath Luke’s bunk meant that I had a wall at my back and the best swordsman in three hundred years above me. 

“Well, you aren’t hurting anything under there so I guess you can stay if you want. But it’s time to get up.” Luke stood up. “There’s no sleeping in during the on season, Percy.”

I followed Luke around for the rest of the day while he showed me what was what and what the counselors expected of me. But for me, it was already a routine. 

In the morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth. After seven years, I didn’t really need to. I knew the language just fine and I was extremely knowledgeable on the Gods as well. To be honest, I didn’t really like hanging out with her very much. She was distracted, short tempered, and thought she was smarter than me. 

I hung out with her for two reasons: to pick up any extra information I didn’t already know, and because I was practicing on her. That is, I was practicing being a clueless twelve-year-old. If I could fool Annabeth, I could fool all of them. 

I’d heard Luke ask Annabeth if I was one of hers. 

“Absolutely not,” she said, disgusted by the notion. 

After grilling Annabeth for everything she knew - and she wasn’t as smart as she would become - I spent the rest of my time with Luke. If he’d taken training me seriously before, he was really doubling down on trying to figure out who my Godly parent was. I wasn’t trying to make it easy on him, but I still didn’t excel at many of the things the Gods were known for. 

“Chiron is gonna teach you archery today,” Luke told me as we headed for the field. He sat on the sidelines. Luke wasn’t good at archery either. 

Chiron was patient and very understanding. He articulated clearly what needed to be done and struck excellent poses. He gave me every tip he could think of. 

What he couldn’t change was that the bow wasn’t my weapon of choice and I hadn’t picked one up since the last time he’d run through this lesson with me. It ended up much the same way that it had the first time; with an arrow snagged in Chiron’s tail and his brown eyes forgiving me for not being good at this. 

After the lesson, Luke walked up to me. “If the goal was to hit everything _but_ the target, you’d be tough to beat.” 

I elbowed him in the ribs and lingered close afterwards. 

“I believe that we can cross Apollo off this list,” Chiron agreed. 

The next day, Luke met me after my lesson with Annabeth. 

She gave him doe-eyes and sneered at me. 

I slung my arm through Luke’s and tugged him away from the Athena Cabin. “What are we doing today?” I peeked behind me. 

Annabeth’s face was scarlet. She looked furious. 

I almost felt bad about trodding all over her feelings but I wasn’t going to let Luke get away from me again. This time I was going to make an effort to pursue him and since I was a month early, I had the time to do it. 

Luke looked surprised. He carefully pulled his arm free; which reminded me that maybe he was straight. Then again, he’d had sex with an actual monster so I was fairly sure that Luke wasn’t too picky about his partners. “You’re going to race.” 

“Chariots?” I asked hopefully. 

“Foot-race,” Luke corrected with a chuckle. He introduced me to the wood-nymph instructors. 

Needless to say, I lost the race against them. It was by a smaller margin than the last time I’d lost, but that was only because I’d been focusing on getting into shape.  


“Slower than a tree,” Luke teased.

I snorted. “I’d like to see you beat them.” 

Luke grinned. “Up for another round, ladies?” He asked the wood-nymphs. They lined up at the starting line and took off at the signal. Luke was _fast_. Despite the wood-nymphs having outrun lovesick Gods for centuries, Luke was able to keep pace with and then out distance them. In a few minutes, Luke was speeding up to me. 

I almost thought he was going to bowl me over but all he did was run a few circles around me. He slowed to a stop in front of me and panted. “Hermes is the God of speed as well as thieves.” 

I clapped him on the back. “You’re so fast! I bet you’re so fast no one would ever catch you.”

“Thieves that get caught are worthless.” Luke spat bitterly. 

“I don’t think you’re worthless,” I countered. 

But he didn’t hear me. He was already walking away. 

Look, as much as I enjoyed showing off with my sword, I didn’t want to challenge Clarisse to a wrestling match. I looked dubiously at the daughter of Ares and then tipped my head to Luke. “I don’t think I’m a son of Ares. Can I skip this one?” 

“Just try it once, Percy,” Luke insisted. 

Ugh, this was going to suck. 

The thing was, I didn’t intend to lose. My pride was on the line here. More importantly, I wanted to cast some seeds of doubt in the Camp. Let them think I was the son of Ares for a few days. 

Which brought us to the fact that Clarisse was taller, heavier, and more experienced at fighting than my twelve-year-old self. If I was going to beat her - without my powers and without my sword - then I would have to get Athena-levels of creative. But whatever I did to her, it would have to be more brutal than nicking her throat with my sword. 

Clarisse enjoyed beating the tar out of me. She got a few painful hits in to my abdomen right off the bat.

I doubled over in pain.

Clarisse punched me directly on my ear. 

There was an _ooo_ from the audience. 

“There’s more where that came from, punk,” she mumbled in my ringing ears. 

I went down hard. My head was spinning. It felt like I’d been hit with a truck. Nausea rippled through me. I told my body to shake it off, just shake it off. There would be more where this came from. I curled my fist around some dirt and then flung it in Clarisse’s eyes when she went to punch me again. 

Clarisse roared and reared back.

I kicked her ankle out from under her and scrambled out of the way before she fell on me. My head throbbed and my ear still rang. This fight wasn’t like the first time, where she’d obeyed the rules of wrestling. She was in this for revenge. I swayed on my feet, the world lurched. The only way to earn Clarisse’s respect was to beat her in a fight. More importantly, I had to make sure that she didn’t try a stunt like this again. 

I lifted my foot and with all of my strength, I brought it down on Clarisse’s ankle. I felt the snap of her bone more than heard it. _I can’t kill you,_ I thought, _but I can still break you._ With Clarisse taken care of, I turned towards Luke. 

The look on his face wasn’t encouraging. Luke looked _thoughtful_, almost _approving_. I knew what he was thinking; that I would definitely join Kronos’ side. He was so wrong, though. 

I didn’t think much on this topic, though, because I could feel myself about to pass out. If I wasn’t hiding my parentage, I could have healed myself. As it was, all I could do was take a few steps towards Luke before I fell onto him. 

Luke caught me. Maybe on reflex, maybe because he cared. I sincerely hoped it was the latter. 

“Yesterday was exciting,” Luke greeted me. “Today we’re gonna chill out a bit.” 

I was totally healed thanks to some nectar and so was Clarisse but I got the feeling that Luke wanted to keep me away from her for a few days. He led me to the strawberry fields.

Pollux and Castor were lounging and stuffing their faces with strawberries. Looking at them - alive and together - made me think of Pollux pleading with us to save his twin. I couldn’t meet their eyes. “Percy,” Pollux said, “Can you make the vines grow?” 

“Percy,” Castor said, “make us some wine.”

“Aren’t you underage?” I asked.

The twins laughed. Even Luke smiled. 

I did my best with the vines but nothing happened. I doubt that any of us really thought that I was a son of Dionysus but I understood that they wanted to make sure. 

“Completely useless,” Pollux decided after an hour of absolutely nothing happening. 

“He’s no brother of ours,” Castor announced. 

Luke and I wandered away from the twins, to an unoccupied part of the field. “Have any ideas?” I asked him. 

“Undetermined,” Luke replied with a grin. 

I punched his bicep. 

We sat down amongst the strawberries. The sun was shining - finally - and the smell of fresh fruit was heavenly. The ground was nice and cool against my bare legs. Luke picked a few strawberries. 

I stole some out of his hand and popped them into my mouth before he could stop me. 

Luke tackled me. It was so unexpected that I fell onto my back. He hovered above me, blue eyes gleaming with mischief. “You think you’re a thief, brat?” The insult was said affectionately. “Think you can get away with stealing from me?” 

I lay in the dirt with the taste of strawberries in my mouth and looked into blue eyes that were so vibrant, they made the sky look pale in comparison. He could have slit my throat with the switchblade he carried in his pocket. He could have wrapped his hands around my throat and strangled me. Logically, I knew this. But I didn’t think he would openly try to kill me before the end of the summer. So I let my guard down, I let myself get lost in his eyes. I wanted to kiss him. I settled for running my fingertips down the length of his scar. 

Luke was as still as a statue in Medusa’s garden. His eyes were wide but closed when I touched his face. He let me trace his scar and then grabbed my hand in his. The air between us was charged with energy. Luke sat back and released my hand. 

I sat up. My heart beat wildly. Just because we were sitting now didn’t mean that the tension had gone away. I picked a strawberry off the bush and threw it at him. It was bigger than the ones I’d taken.

Luke caught it absently. He raised an eyebrow at me. 

“An exchange,” I explained. “I took something from you, now I’m giving you back something of greater value.”

Luke snorted. “You’re a strange one, Percy Jackson.” 

It was morning and the other campers from the Hermes Cabin had cleared out already. “Let me see your eyes,” Luke said to me. He tipped my chin up and looked into my eyes. 

I let myself get lost in Luke’s blue eyes again. It was always a relief that both his eyes were still blue but I could see his sorrow and pain. It scared me to see those in his eyes. Luke was already on the wrong path; I had a time limit to get him onto the right one. I laid one of my hands over Luke’s. “Find what you’re looking for?” I asked quietly. 

The searching expression on his face morphed into one of frustration. “I don’t think so,” he said but he didn’t sound sure. 

We stood like that for a few moments longer. Then Luke pulled away. “Go have some fun. It’s free time.” 

I hesitated. “But I want to hang out with you.” I knew that I was a middle-schooler to him, that I was probably really lame to a dude who was so old. But he’d shown an interest in me last time around and even more of an interest this time around. 

Luke sighed. “Fine. Let’s go try another skill.” He took me to the Camp Forge. 

The Forge had marble columns that were sootstained and huge chimneys on the roof. Even from the outside, we could hear the crackling of fires and the steady thrum of hammers hitting metal. 

I didn’t like being in the Forge. There was too much heat and noise for my tastes. Being in there was like suffocating. I stuck close to Luke but my eyes took in everything around us. 

Nearly all of the Hephaestus Cabin members were there, tolling away at a large pile of weapons and gadgets. They looked up when we entered. Charles Beckendorf looked up at our arrival. “Luke,” he said with a grin. “Percy is far too handsome to be a son of Hephaestus.”

I couldn’t tell if my flush was from the heat or his compliment. 

Beckendorf gave me some scraps to work with and set me up in a corner of the Forge that was out of the way. He went back to his work but I could tell that he was still keeping an eye on me. 

I stared at the scraps and then at Luke and back at the scraps. Hesitantly, I reached out and touched one. What in Poseidon’s name was I supposed to do with this? If Leo was here. I missed him a lot. Thinking of Leo made me think of Calypso. She was still out there, waiting to be rescued. There was so much left to do! At this point, I wasn’t even scraping the surface of everything that I had to do to bring everyone together and keep them alive. “Luke,” I said, “Can we get out of here?” 

Luke led the way back out into fresh air and cool breeze. He had a fine layer of sweat from the heat of the Forges. “Didn’t think that was gonna be your cup of tea but I figured we should try.” 

After that first time, Luke asked to see my eyes every day. Sometimes several times a day. He always looked frustrated by the end of it, though. 

Finally, I asked him about it. “What are you looking for?” 

Luke’s face turned pink with a blush. He didn’t quite meet my eye. “Just checking for something.” 

“Duh,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “But _what_ are you checking for?” 

Luke pursed his lips. “Come with me.” He led me to the Aphrodite Cabin and suddenly I knew what he’d been looking for. Luke had been checking to see if my eyes were changing color. He led me up the checkerboard steps and knocked on the door. 

Silena answered the door wrapped in a towel. Her hair was damp from a shower and the deep red color of rust. She looked surprised to see the both of us. “What are you doing here, Luke? And with him?” 

“Can we come in?” Luke asked. 

Silena looked us up and down for a moment as though she was considering saying no. Then she stepped aside. “What’s this about, Luke?” 

Then I remembered; Silena was a traitor. She was on Kronos’ side and she died in the war. How did she die? How could I save her? 

By sticking close to Luke, that was how. I _had_ to get him on my side. There wasn’t any doubt about that. I slided up close enough to Luke that our elbows were brushing. 

Luke glanced down at me but he was used to this behaviour after a few days of it. He gestured to me with the opposite hand. “Is he one of yours?” 

Surprise crossed Silena’s features yet again. She looked at me critically, giggled, and then looked back at Luke. “He isn’t cute enough to be a child of Aphrodite.” 

“Hey,” I complained. I crossed my arms and pouted. Just wait until she saw my abs once I got them back. 

Luke didn’t look happy with her answer. “Is he cursed?” 

“Cursed?” Silena and I echoed.

“Percy, go wait outside real quick,” Luke ordered. 

I threw him a look that said he’d better explain later, then reluctantly made my way to the porch. The only Cabin that was soundproof was the Hades Cabin and that hadn’t yet been built. So thankfully, I could still hear their conversation. 

Silena’s voice drifted out to me. “Why would you think he’s cursed, Luke? And by Aphrodite?”

“You heard about his first day here?” Luke responded. 

“Slaying the Minotaur?” A pause. “Oh, you mean the kiss. I did hear about that. Luke, just because he kissed you, doesn’t mean that he’s been cursed or that he’s a child of Aphrodite.” 

“He sleeps under my bunk,” Luke said. 

“He..._under_ your bunk?” Silena repeated. It was clearly news to her. “That’s strange, but -”

“He follows me around. He’s always touching me. And watching me.” Well at least I’d been getting Luke’s attention. “He looks at me like...like...I don’t even know.” 

Maybe I was laying it on a little thick. 

Silena giggled again. “Luke, it sounds like he’s smitten with you. Just a little puppy love.” 

“He _kissed_ me,” Luke reiterated. “The second he saw me, he just walked up and kissed me. Does that sound like puppy love to you?”

“Well,” Silena relented. “It is a bit unusual for puppy love. It’s even a bit bold for love at first sight. I can try some spells, if it will make you feel better. But I don’t think that he’s a child of Aphrodite.”

A few seconds later, Luke opened the door and called me back in. He looked distressed, which hadn’t been my intention at all. 

Silena smiled warmly at me. “I’m just going to do a few tests, alright, Percy? To make sure you aren’t cursed or anything.” 

I thought that this was a very roundabout way of finding out my feelings for Luke. They could have just asked me. There was no need to drag me to the Aphrodite Cabin. My eyes found Luke again. Why would he have Silena do tests on me? 

My whole body suddenly felt how pop rocks feel in my mouth. I shivered. “What was that?” I asked.

Silena’s green eyes were wide. She looked hard at me and then at Luke. “He isn’t cursed,” she said finally. 

“I could have told you that,” I said helpfully. If I wasn’t cursed, then what was that face all about? 

“Percy, have you met Luke before?” Silena asked me. 

“What did you see?” Luke asked. 

Silena shushed him. 

It occured to me only then that Silena might have charmspeak. Piper’s charmspeak always worked on me. I had no reason to think that Silena’s wouldn’t. “Not before Camp,” I evaded. That was vague enough that neither of them should register it as a lie. Because it wasn’t a lie. 

My answer only made her brow furrow further. She didn’t seem satisfied at all. 

“Silena,” Luke tried again. 

“Have you shown Percy the lake yet, Luke? I think you should take him for a swim.” Silena definitely wasn’t going to answer Luke’s question. “Aphrodite isn’t his Godly parent and she hasn’t cursed him. The rest is his business.” Silena was so intent on getting us out of her Cabin that she nearly pushed us onto the porch. She slammed the door shut behind us. 

What did she see? 

Luke and I looked at each other, at a loss. 

Finally he asked, “Do you want to go swimming?” 

I couldn’t resist the water so I agreed. As we walked towards the lake, I was burning with questions. “Luke, what was that all about? What tests did Silena do?” 

Luke evaded my question and my eyes for the whole walk. It was a long time for him to ignore me but I got the impression that he was thinking about how to answer me.

We were the only ones at canoe lake aside from the Naiads. They waved and giggled at us before slipping into the water. 

Luke pulled his shirt over his head. He was absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to run my tongue over those abs, wanted to follow his happy trail with my mouth, wanted to suck on his dusky nipples. Luke caught me looking, naturally. He raised an eyebrow. 

For a second I thought about trying to hide my attraction. But if he took me to see Silena, then I was already doing a lousy job of that. I met his gaze and let him see the hunger in mine. 

Luke looked away first. He shucked off his shorts. Oh. He wasn’t wearing anything beneath them. 

My mouth watered. I hurriedly struggled out of my shirt and shorts. I was wearing underwear - blue ones - because I wasn’t an absolute animal but being an animal looked pretty good right now. If I wanted to, I could have kept the water off my clothes but then I’d reveal who my Godly parent was. I knew I couldn’t keep it a secret forever but I wasn’t sure when I wanted it to be public knowledge. My blue underwear joined my shorts on the beach. 

Compared to Luke, I was small and my body was still soft with youth. If I didn’t already know what I was going to look like in just a few years, I would have been self conscious about it. As it was, I walked past Luke with my chin up. The second my feet touched the cool water, I broke into a grin. It felt like going home. 

In seconds, I was fully submerged. 

Luke followed more slowly. “You really like the water, huh?” He picked his way to me in that careful way people who were cautious of water did. 

I threw back my head and laughed. “It’s the best,” I said. The water was still pretty shallow here so I swam to deeper water so that I could do a backflip. As far as I knew, the only thing in canoe lake was the Naiads so I didn’t have to worry about accidentally revealing my powers by fighting a monster.

Luke wasn’t a child of Poseidon but he did seem to enjoy the water as well. He swam out after me, though he didn’t try any tricks. 

I swam circles around him. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re as annoying as Annabeth, Percy.” No one had ever told me that before. 

I stuck out my tongue. “We’re both curious minds, Luke.” 

Luke’s eyes narrowed as he considered this. I’d come to know this as the face he made when he was trying to figure out my heritage. Then he shook his head. “Maybe you’re a child of Hermes. A jack-of-all-trades.”

“I hope not,” I said. I floated on my back, enjoying the sunlight. I kept Luke in my sights, though. He’d acted friendly before but still tried to murder me with that scorpion. Now we were alone on the lake and I wouldn’t put it past him to try to drown me. The idea of anyone trying to drown me was hilarious and Luke wouldn’t be the first to fail at that particular task.

“What’s wrong with Hermes?” Luke asked, defensive. He didn’t even like his dad all that much but any insult against Hermes was an insult against Luke.

Hermes was one of the few Gods that I actually liked. He didn’t blame me for failing Luke, he took responsibility for the fact that he also failed Luke. But that was another time. It didn’t matter right now. “I don’t want to be your brother,” I admitted. 

“So it’s me you’ve got a problem with,” Luke said. His voice was a little too heavy to be teasing. 

And I realized then, why he’d taken me to see Silena and what their conversation had been about. “I guess you could call it that,” I hedged. We weren’t even two weeks in and I was already going to have to tell him I had feelings for him. If I waited, he might fall deeper in with Kronos. “Inner-Cabin dating is...frowned on, isn’t it?” 

It wasn’t like it didn’t happen. Half-siblings hooking up with each other was the epitome of the Greek Gods. It wasn’t a death sentence for demigods from the same Cabin to date but most people felt like it was wrong somehow, even though the Gods didn’t have physical DNA and so they technically weren’t blood related. 

Luke treaded water. His eyes were on me. “Usually,” he said after a long moment of silence. 

I should just tell him. Now I knew how Nico felt, the nerve-wracking feeling of telling an older boy that you like him. “You could just ask me, you know.” It wasn’t a confession. 

“Percy,” Luke said desperately. 

“Yes?” I asked innocently. 

“Why are you such a pain in my ass?” He said without looking at me. Luke’s gaze had drifted back to shore. 

“I feel like I could be _more_ of a pain in your ass, Luke,” I said slyly. Gods, my heart was beating so fast! The truth was, I’d never flirted with Luke before. And I knew I was coming on really strong, that this was the sort of stupid banter I’d use to charm my way into someone’s bed. 

“What did Silena see when she cast that spell?” Luke asked. 

I rightened myself so that I could look him in the eye. “She saw that I love you.” 

“You don’t even know me, Percy,” Luke stated. It sounded like a warning.

I knew more than he thought. “I know that you have two beautiful blue eyes.” That was important. I desperately wanted them to stay blue. They just had to. “I know that you’re angry because...because we aren’t treated right. I know that you love Annabeth and Thalia.” 

Luke’s eyes snapped to me. “You know about Thalia?” 

I nodded and didn’t offer an explanation. “I know that you’re the best swordsman in three hundred years. I know that you’re the best thief to ever exist. I know that you have nightmares every night.” 

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you sleep under my bed.” 

“Better me than a monster you know,” I replied. Then I dived beneath the surface of the water. I let myself sink down, down and looked up at the shadowy image of Luke treading water. This was where I’d been when Chronos summoned me to Olympus. The truth was, I wanted to stay down here forever. Just because I was in my twelve-year-old body again, didn’t mean that my wants and desires had changed. When Chronos summoned me, I’d been underwater for several weeks at that point. I was essentially living in the lake. 

I swam back up a few minutes later. The position of the sun told me that it was nearly dinner time. 

Luke splashed me in the face. “Where in the Underworld did you go?” 

“Down to the bottom.” I started swimming towards the shore. “I’m embarrassed!” I yelled back at him. 

Luke swam after me. He was much slower, his movements not as silky smooth in the water. “That makes two of us!” He yelled back. 

I was already on the shore of the lake when Luke came walking out of the water. From the corner of my eye, I watched as the water rolled down his body. “You should be flattered,” I told him. 

“Oh? You think you’re so great, kid?” Luke sat down on a rock to dry off before putting his clothes back on. With the golden glow of the sun lighting up his tan skin, he looked like a God. 

“Well you’re hanging out with me all the time, so I must be.” It was surprisingly easy to channel my younger self, to let myself get caught up in how cool Luke was. I knew what he’d done, even hated him for it for a few years, but he was still cool. I sat down on a rock nearby - definitely did not want to get sand on my balls - and looked out over the lake. “You don’t have to say it now. But one day, we’ll see eye to eye.”

Luke looked serious. “I hope so.” 

Taking me to the stables seemed to be Luke’s last-ditch effort to find out who my Godly parent was. My sire was a hotly debated topic among the senior campers and counselors. Luke still seemed to think that I was one of Aphrodite’s kids, even though Silena insisted that I wasn’t. 

Blackjack wasn’t there so it was easy to ignore the other pegasis’ voices. 

Luke and I hung out in the stables for a while, brushing the horses and giving them fresh water. 

Luke looked over the silvery back of a pegasus. “You don’t seem worried about your mom.” That was a leading question if I’d ever heard one. 

“I don’t think she’s dead,” I answered. “She disappeared but...I don’t think she’s dead.” I kept my eyes on the glistening coat of the pegasus and ran the curry over it again. 

“Did you guys have a good relationship?” He asked. 

I nodded. “She’s the best mom I’ve ever had.” It sounded strange once I said it out loud but I realized that I was including Lupa in the _mother_ category. “She quit school to take care of her uncle. He died before I met him. And then she got pregnant with me and had to raise me by herself. I wasn’t an easy kid to deal with.”

Luke carefully pulled some straw from the pegasus’ feathers. He let it fall to the ground. “You had a good life?” 

I laughed, then, hard and bitter. “Boarding school after boarding school. Everywhere I went, I got into trouble. Everyone thinks I’m stupid because I have trouble reading and paying attention. Constantly being stalked by monsters but I didn’t know it at the time.” I rolled my eyes. “You’d think it would get better when I was home. A loving mother who gave up everything to take care of me. But no. She married my asshole stepdad.”

Luke was looking at me now, studying my face. 

I avoided his eyes. “He’s disgusting and lazy and cruel. My mom works so hard to bring in money and all he does is spend it gambling on his poker games and drinking booze. When I wasn’t there, he used my room as storage and it always smelled like his gross cigars and sweat.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “If I ever had money, he’d take it. If I sassed him too much or looked at him wrong, he’d hit me. If I threatened to tell my mom, he’d…” I thought about how to phrase it in a way that didn’t make me sound pathetic. “Knock my lights out,” I finished. 

I’d stopped grooming the pegasus. I was so angry that I was shaking. My vision was going white with anger. “When I went home last time, he was beating my mom.” Frustrated tears welled up in my eyes. I ducked my head and swiped them away. 

The next thing I knew, Luke’s arms were around me. “Sorry, kid.” 

“I wish my dad…” I trailed off. 

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Me too.” 

I knew that Kronos gave Luke nightmares every night. I knew that it was a fear tactic that Kronos used to keep Luke in line. While I lay beneath Luke’s bunk, I could hear him whimpering and crying in his sleep. If our Cabin-mates knew about it, they didn’t say anything. Then again, I was the new guy and they’d all had time to get used to it.  
To be perfectly honest, it surprised me that they let Luke keep having nightmares. Clovis even slept in the Hermes Cabin, only feet away, so he had to be aware of it. Maybe Clovis’ powers weren’t strong enough to stop Luke’s nightmares. That didn’t bode well. 

Every night, after everyone was asleep and Luke was in the throes of bad dreams, I slipped out from beneath the bunk. I sat on the edge of Luke’s bunk, brushed back his sweaty hair, and hummed a lullaby under my breath. 

Some nights, Luke lashed out and I would wake up with a new bruise. Other nights, he settled into what seemed like a more peaceful sleep. 

I wished I could say my motivations were pure. But here’s the thing: Luke had to switch sides or a bunch of demigods would die, including me, and everything would change for the worse. The fact that I wanted a romantic relationship with him was just the cherry on top. It felt like I was using him. And what’s more? I was okay with that. 

Tagging along around Camp with him, soothing his nightmares, blatantly expressing my interest in him, opening up about my life before Camp - it was all to humanize me. To endear me to him. I was working all the way down to his subconscious. Nico had once informed me that I smelled _'brackish like Venice’_ and Annabeth had said more or less the same thing on multiple occasions. I needed him to associate everything about me - my voice, my face, my very _scent_ \- with thoughts of safety and love. 

Once everything was out in the open, Luke would try to recruit me to Kronos’ side. But once he gave up on that, the next step was to kill me for real. No summoning Hellhounds or scorpions; he’d run me through with Backbiter himself. 

So I would put in the extra effort. I would sacrifice sleep to sit beside him at night when no one else would. I would spend nearly every waking minute with him, dropping comments about my love for him and letting myself be the lovesick puppy. Whenever we did something new, I would push myself hard to gain his approval. He didn’t have to understand it; he just had to accept it. And eventually I would wear him down. 

When we started to talk about Camp, about the Gods, and the Quests, I really had to watch what I said and how I reacted. It was a fine balance between agreeing that things were wrong and validating his choice to get in bed with Kronos. 

I was a tightrope walker and one wrong step would plunge us all to our deaths.

Ten days after arriving at Camp Half-Blood, I got my first sword fighting lesson. It wasn’t just the kids from Cabin Eleven who gathered around to watch me; almost everyone from every other Cabin was there. 

We started with stabbing and slashing at straw dummies in Greek armor. I participated half-heartedly. With Riptide in my hand I couldn’t really be _bad_ at it, but fighting an enemy that didn’t fight back was boring. 

When we moved on to fighting in pairs, Luke announced that he would be my partner since this was my first time. 

“Good luck,” Miranda told me. “Luke’s the best swordsman in the last three hundred years.”

“Maybe he’ll go easy on me,” I said with a smile.

Miranda snorted. 

Luke started with basic thrusts, parries, and shield blocks. 

I tried to keep up the air of ignorance and inexperience. But that mask was cracking apart fast. The longer we clashed swords, the more it became obvious that I knew what I was doing. I dodged, I blocked, I got in some good thrusts. Physically, there was no muscle memory. Mentally, I knew exactly what to do. 

Luke still left me battered and bruised but I managed to hit him more than once. He seemed surprised but still hadn’t yet realized how evenly matched we were. 

There were murmurs in the crowd. 

By the time he called break, we were both dripping with sweat. I had a cut across my leg that stung but wasn’t much more than a scrape. There were far more bruises. Luke poured ice water on his head. 

I did the same, a small smile playing on my lips. Instantly, I felt better. Strength poured into my limbs and the cut on my leg healed. 

“Okay, everybody, circle up!” Luke ordered. “If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo.” 

_Great,_ I thought, _time to show him what I’m made of._

The Hermes Cabin gathered closer around us, paying close attention. The audience seemed to lean in too. Everyone was suppressing smiles. I figured that they’d been in my shoes before and couldn’t wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. Luke explained that he was going to do the disarming technique then demonstrated it in slow motion. Sure enough, Riptide clattered out of my hand. 

I picked it up immediately. 

“Now in real time.” 

I got ready, matching his stance. My senses opened up just like Lupa had taught me. I was ready for every one of Luke’s attacks and responded accordingly. I moved across the dirt with more grace than I’d shown before. 

The first time I cut him, Luke’s eyes narrowed. I saw a change in his face. He came at me with more force. 

Riptide was made for my hand so I didn’t really get tired of holding it like I did other blades. The longer our fight went on, the more my body caught on to what my mind was remembering. That’s not to say it was easy. I pushed myself hard, so hard that sweat dripped into my eyes. My vision narrowed to Luke. My enemy. My friend. Hopefully more, one day. Something shifted between us and suddenly I was the one on offense.

Luke played defense only as I forced him to back up again and again, moved with such a swiftness that he could only block and didn’t have the time to attack back. His expression shifted and changed as he realized that I was actually really good at this. His blue eyes hardened and he stopped going easy on me. 

After that, we were pretty much evenly matched. I didn’t stoop to cheap tricks with him like I had when fighting Clarisse. Luke deserved the honor of a real fight, a real effort. But we had done this so many times before that I knew all of his moves. I could practically see them before he did them. 

I went for the disarming maneuver. My blade hit the base of Luke’s and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust. 

_Clang._

Luke’s sword clattered to the ground. 

The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest. For a second, I only saw the boy who was my enemy, a foe to be killed. I pressed the tip of my sword into the armor above his heart. Then I looked into his eyes. Two blues. My hands shook, my entire body jerked away from him. I lowered my sword.

Luke was too stunned to speak. His chest was heaving with every breath. I’d worn him out. 

The other campers were silent. 

The rise and fall of my chest matched his. “I’m sorry, Luke.” 

“Sorry?” Luke repeated. “By the Gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!” 

I shook my head. “Can we take a break? I need a drink.” My mouth was dry and tasted like copper. 

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. “Yeah. Okay.” 

We hydrated and then got back to it. I gave it my best and the fight went on for a few minutes, but in the end Luke hit my hilt and sent Riptide skidding across the ground. It was better to win one and lose one. Luke’s pride wouldn’t be so damaged. 

“Who taught you?” Luke asked. 

I shook my head. “They called him the best swordsman in three hundred years.” But that’s all I would say about the matter. 

Luke switched tactics. “Is that your sword?” 

“Yeah.” I capped Riptide. “Chiron gave it to me to slay Alecto.” 

There was an audible gasp from the audience. The people who had leaned in to watch us fight, now took a few steps back.

I rolled my eyes. Demigods and names. “It’s fine,” I said, “she hasn’t reformed yet.” 

Another shocked gasp rolled through the audience. I was a stone being dropped into their pond. “Do you think he’s Hades son?” somebody in the audience asked. 

“The Big Three aren’t supposed to have kids,” somebody else said. They didn’t sound too sure, though. 

Luke appraised me with an entirely new interest. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said. “Percy still hasn’t been claimed…” 

“Let me see your eyes,” Luke still said sometimes. It was only when we were alone that he’d initiate this ritual. He tilted my chin up. After a few moments of direct eye contact, Luke said, “Still that unusual green.” It lacked the former frustration. 

I didn’t know why he still did this, but I knew it wasn’t because he was actually checking my eye color. “Still two blues,” I said back. 

He never asked me about that, though he must have wondered. Now he ran his thumb along my jaw.

I still touched his scar, lightly traced my fingertips down the taut length of it. Scars didn’t bother me in the slightest - I’d had my hands on so many of them before this - but I think Luke was charmed by my unflinching acceptance of his scar. Before, I’d never noticed how the other campers sometimes looked at Luke with pity or revulsion in their eyes but now I saw it too frequently for my liking. 

After I touched his face, Luke would drop his hand and step back to put space between us. Then, we’d go about our day like nothing unusual had happened. 

Seducing Luke wasn’t my only goal. I needed to find out where he’d hidden Backbiter. I knew he had the sword; the question was _where_ was he keeping it? Luke never got a minute away from me and I always let him choose what we did. I hoped that he would inadvertently lead me to it. But that strategy was getting me nowhere.

We were back in the combat arena. It was Luke’s favorite place to take me now that he knew how good I was with a sword. I wished I could tell him that I was good because of him. Having a twelve-year-old show him up at something he’d been doing for five years rubbed a sore spot between us. Especially since I wouldn’t drop the name of the guy who taught me. 

During a water break, I made my move. “Luke, you know how celestial bronze doesn’t hurt mortals?”

He poured water over his head. “Mhm.” 

“What would happen if you made a weapon out of steel _and_ celestial bronze?” 

I could tell by the way he froze that I’d caught him off guard. Luke recovered quickly. “Why do you want to know about that?” 

“Mortals are bad too,” I replied, thinking of Smelly Gabe and Nancy Bobofit. 

Luke sighed. “If you wanted to go that route, hypothetically, it would be easier to get your hands on Stygian Iron.” 

I immediately thought of Nico’s sword. I’d known that it was dangerous but I didn’t realize just how dangerous it was. “Easier than what?” I pressed. 

“Only children of the Underworld can wield it though, so I’m pretty sure that eliminates you.” Luke studied me thoughtfully. 

That would be my first move, then. I couldn’t risk waiting a year to get the Di Angelo siblings. I bumped my knee against Luke’s. “Easier than _what_, Luke?”

“There is a weapon. Made of steel and celestial bronze.” 

I thought very carefully about how to frame my next question. “Does it work on immortals too?” 

Luke paled. He looked around, as though expecting us to be watched. And then he nodded curtly. 

I kicked my legs lightly and looked out into the middle distance while I plotted. My teeth worried my lip. 

“Percy,” Luke drew my attention back to him. He looked scared. “The forger dies.” 

“Oh,” I said. I’d suspected as much but now it was confirmed for me. Who had forged Backbiter? A Titan most likely. Maybe one I’d never heard of because they were gone forever. With the River Lethe at my disposal, getting a Titan to die on my behalf should be easy enough. Except it wasn’t at my disposal and it wouldn’t be until the Hypnos Cabin was built. That was years away. After we defeated Kronos. 

Luke clapped his hands in front of my face.

I snapped out of my reverie. 

“C’mon, Percy. Let’s go again.” Luke said. 

I followed him back out to the center of the arena but I was distracted and he whooped my ass every round. I’d have bruises to show for it by dinner tonight. 

Friday night rolled around and everyone was excited for capture the flag. There was more rowdiness than usual in the dining pavilion. 

I was nervous but not about the game. Tonight was the night that Poseidon would claim me. No more pretending like I didn’t know who my Godly parent was. No more spending my nights beneath Luke’s bunk. From now on, things were going to get serious. 

Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her siblings ran in with another banner that was gaudy red and painted with a spear sticking through a boar’s head. 

I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, “Whose side are we on?” 

He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn’t. The eye closest to the torchlight looked almost yellow. “We’ve made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help.” 

I tried not to flinch away from the trick of the light cast by the torch but a chill still went up my spine at the sight of Luke with one blue eye and one yellow one. As the teams were announced, I pulled Luke’s face down to my level and looked into his eyes. Two blues.

Luke looked confused by my actions - and in public - but he was too used to this ritual by now. He let me look and then he returned his attention to Chiron. 

Chiron announced the rules and then shouted, “Arm yourselves!” 

I was given a helmet with a blue horsehair plume on top like all of those on Athena’s side wore, and a shield so huge that I could have snowboarded on it. I really needed to get myself a good shield. That thought made me think of Tyson and the watch shield he had made for me. I hoped that we would be close again. 

Luke gave me the same job as last time: “border patrol.” 

I went off to my position by the creek. The woods were dark, the night air was warm and sticky. Fireflies popped in and out of view. I was the only one there but I knew that wouldn’t last long. After Annabeth went off to turn invisible in private, I stepped into the creek. There was something about this game that I was supposed to remember. Something aside from Clarisse and my claiming. 

The conch shell sounded the start of the game. The whooping and howling of hunting kids reached my ears. I could easily pick up the clank of their armor, the sounds of their footsteps as they ran through the woods. An Apollo kid with a blue plume leapt like a deer across the creek and disappeared into enemy territory. 

I smelled brimstone. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The Hellhound. I’d forgotten about it. I whipped around, sword at the ready, but the smell faded. 

On the other side of the creek, the brush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark. “Cream the punk!” Clarisse yelled. 

I had to hand it to Clarisse. Even after getting her ass beat twice, she still came back for more. Maybe the third time would be the charm. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy’s head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard that I could see his eyeballs vibrating as he crumpled into the water. 

Ugly Numbers Two and Three came at me. I hit Ugly Number Two in the face with the butt of my sword and felt bone crack. Blood spurted onto my shirt. Ugly Number Three managed to get around me but I twisted my sword and stabbed backwards. He barely managed to stumble back in time before I gutted him. 

_Don’t kill demigods,_ I reminded myself. Who knew there would be a time when I actually had to remind myself of that? This was why I stayed in the lake. 

Ugly Number Four didn’t seem so eager to attack me but I still managed to cut the plume off his helmet. 

Clarisse came at me with the point of her spear crackling with energy. Her eyes were filled with pure rage. 

I swung my sword like a baseball bat and snapped the shaft of her speak like a twig. The burst of electricity sped up my arm and made it go numb. I dropped Riptide. 

Clarisse screamed. “You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!” 

I rolled my eyes. Just wait until she met Nico. 

Excited yelling came from nearby. Luke raced towards the boundary line with the Ares flag in his hands. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes and Apollo campers, covering his retreat and fighting back the Hephaestus kids. 

The Ares kids looked stunned. “A trick!” Clarisse shouted. “It was a trick!” They stumbled after Luke but it was too late.

Luke was beauty, he was grace, he would probably have stabbed them in the face. He made it across the boundary line and into friendly territory. 

Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The Ares symbol was replaced by a huge caduceus, the symbol of the Hermes. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. 

Chiron cantered out of the woods and blew on the conch horn to signal our win. 

Annabeth’s voice drifted into my ear. “Not so bad, hero.”

I picked up Riptide. “So I’m a hero now?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow. 

“Well, with a little help.” The air shimmered and Annabeth held a Yankees baseball cap in one hand. With the other, she tapped her temple. “Athena has it all figured out.”  


Yeah. I was sure that was the case. 

I couldn’t worry about Annabeth right now, though. I spotted it materialize from the shadows on the rocks above me. The Hellhound was black as night, the size of a rhino, and had lava-red eyes. It wasn’t as big as Mrs. O’Leary but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a threat. The Hellhound was looking right at me. 

Looking at the Hellhound made my heart ache. Because it meant that I wasn’t getting through to Luke. He’d still summoned it with the hopes of killing me. 

At least I hadn’t sheathed Riptide. 

Chiron shouted in ancient Greek for the campers to get ready. 

Nobody moved except for Annabeth, who yelled, “Percy, run!” 

The Hellhound leapt over Annabeth and sailed straight for me. It hit me and I felt its razor sharp teeth sink into my shoulder, through my armor. Agony tore through me. 

I lifted Riptide and with one swift movement, I cut the Hellhound’s head clean off. Well, not clean. That was definitely not my cleanest decapitation but to be fair, I was only using one arm. 

The Hellhound fell dead on top of me. Before its huge weight crushed me, it melted into shadows, soaked into the ground until it was no more. Only the head remained in my lap. I grimaced at it. I couldn’t put that on my wall, could I? Who on earth would stuff it for me? What would Mrs. O’Leary think? I brushed it off my lap then I touched my chest. It was warm and wet with my own blood. Those teeth had done some serious damage. 

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, still notched. He hadn’t had time to shoot it. His expression was grim but also filled with wonder. 

_“Di immortales!”_ Annabeth said. “That’s a Hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don’t...they’re not supposed to…” 

“Someone summoned it,” Chiron said. “Someone inside the Camp.” 

I forced myself not to seek out Luke. He came to me anyway, banner and victory forgotten. After a moment, I met his eyes. Two blue. He looked equally worried and impressed. 

Clarisse yelled, “It was Percy! Percy summoned the Hellhound!” 

“Be quiet, child,” Chiron told her. He was looking at my wounds. 

My blood was really pumping out of me. It stained the armor. “Luke,” I said, “help me...the stream.” 

For a second I thought that Luke would refuse. Then he slung an arm under my good one and hauled me to my feet. He helped me to the stream and stood in the current with me. 

I immediately felt better. The bite started closing up. I wasn’t dizzy anymore. 

Some of the campers gasped. 

Luke’s breath caught. 

“Percy,” Annabeth said, “Um…” she pointed above my head. 

I looked up and saw the trident glowing brightly above my head. It faded slowly, the afterimage lingering. _Good timing, dad._

“Your father,” Annabeth murmured. “This is _really_ not good.” 

“It is determined,” Chiron announced. 

All around me, campers started kneeling. I took deep satisfaction in watching the Ares Cabin kneel too. Luke had backed up and knelt in the water before me. 

Was it bad that my mind went straight to the gutter? The exact same as it had when Nico bowed before me when Chronos took us. _Don’t think about it,_ I told myself, _this is a special moment for the other campers._

“Poseidon. Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I crammed a lot of days into one chapter because Length. Percy has been at Camp Half-Blood for 15 days as of the end of the chapter. So if it's at all confusing, here's the current timeline: 
> 
> December 21, 2004 - Luke steals the Master Bolt  
May 11, 2005 - Yancy Field Trip  
May 13, 2005 - Percy goes to Camp Half-Blood  
May 14, 2005 - Not A Son Of Apollo  
May 15, 2005 - Losing The Footrace  
May 16, 2005 - Wrestling With Clarisse  
May 17, 2005 - The Strawberry Fields (Forever)  
May 18, 2005 - Longingly Staring Into Each Other's Eyes pt 1  
May 20, 2005 - Visiting Silena's Cabin  
May 21, 2005 - Stables  
May 23, 2005 - Longingly Staring Into Each Other's Eyes pt 2  
May 27, 2005 - Poseidon Claims Percy


	4. We Complete Our First Side Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clovis and Luke are forced to go on a Quest and Percy crosses one thing off his List Of Shit To Do.

After the announcement, I was forced to move into Cabin Three. I only had time to grab my Minotaur horn. Chiron promised that he would take care of the Hellhound head and get it properly stuffed for me. I was finally in my own room, in a place that smelled like home, sleeping in an actual bed. 

I missed Luke. 

After my claiming, everyone at Camp treated me like I was a contagion. They were scared. I didn’t blame them. The only two people who still talked to me were Annabeth - out of sheer stubbornness - and Luke.

Luke found me later than usual that day. It was already afternoon. He tossed me my armor. “C’mon. We’re going to see how your stamina is.” 

Oh, I could show him how good my stamina was. Now that I had my own Cabin, I couldn’t keep my hand out of my pants. That was just one of the joys at having my own space, without two dozen other kids sharing. 

But all I said was, “Okay.” 

Right away, I knew that this wasn’t going to be like our other spars. Luke wasn’t going hard like he wanted to end the fight early, he was moving with tact. Sometimes he even danced out of my reach just to get a breather, to make me chase him. 

Five minutes passed and then ten. Twenty, thirty, an entire hour. We were soaked with sweat but we didn’t stop. By the time two hours had passed, my arms shook but I wasn’t giving up yet. 

Luke had dark shadows beneath his eyes. I didn’t think he was sleeping as well now that I wasn’t there to soothe away the nightmares. As the day wore on and we kept sparring, the shadows around his eyes seemed to grow darker. 

Most sword fights only lasted a few minutes, tops. It was too hard to keep going for much longer than that. And also, the goal was usually to kill your opponent. But we were demigods. Our stamina was greater than that of the average mortal. And we weren’t actually trying to kill each other today. 

The truth was, I was also being fueled by anger. Luke had tried to kill me. Luke tried to kill me. I poured all of my anger into the fight and literally lashed out at Luke. I wanted to scream at him. Was this really what he was like? Was this just his personality? Did he really hate all demigods that much? It wasn’t our fault we were born or that our Godly parents didn’t claim half of us. 

Another hour passed and our moves were getting sloppy. We were exhausted, reaching the ends of our ropes. Luke’s entire body was trembling. He gasped for every breath, blue eyes looking blearily at me. 

I wasn’t much better. My bones felt like they were vibrating, my hands were cramped around my sword handle. I had lost so much water through sweat that my mouth was like a desert and I was dizzy. We were blade to blade when Riptide fell out of my hands. 

Luke’s sword point went to my chest, the same way mine had done days earlier. He looked at me like he wanted to skewer me with it. 

I caught his gaze. If he was going to kill me, he’d have to look into my eyes while he did it. His sword went through a hole in my armor and tore my shirt. I felt the sting of metal slicing into my flesh. There was something strangely intimate about having only the tip of his sword lodged in my skin. 

We stared at each other for a long time. 

Luke retracted the sword, then tossed it away. It landed with a clatter. “I’m too tired for this,” he muttered. He laid down in the dirt and stared up at the sky. 

I laid down beside him and my body sang with the bittersweet relief of finally not working. “You have to stop,” I told him. 

“Stop what?” He asked. 

“Trying to kill me.” I said. Echoing him, I added, “I’m too tired for this.” 

“You’re twelve.”

“I’m an old man,” I countered. 

“Oh Gods,” Luke said under his breath. “I wasn’t trying to kill you.” 

“You’ve got to stop that too,” I croaked. My mouth was so dry. The water cooler was so far. 

“Stop what?” He asked again. 

“Lying to me.” 

Luke made a strange wheezing noise and it took me a second to realize that he was laughing. 

“What?” I demanded. 

“I’m not the only one, Percy. You should see your face when you’re holding that sword. Everyone who finds themselves on the sharp end of it makes peace with their death.” He reached out with his hand and nudged me playfully. 

I rolled onto my stomach so that I could look at him. “Luke,” I said seriously, “you aren’t allowed to die. I won’t let you.” _Not again._

Before he could respond, I heard the clop of hooves. “There you are!” Grover said. He looked worried. “Mr. D wants to see you, Percy.” 

I dropped my head into the sand and groaned. “Tell him I’m dead.” 

Grover gave a nervous bleat. “He’s going to kill you for real, Percy. I-I mean, if you don’t get up and go see him right now.” 

I summoned water from the cooler to me and drank it out of the air. The rest, I splashed on my face. It rejuvenated me immediately. I stood up and my back cracked. I looked down at Luke. “Someone might beat you to it but hopefully I’ll be back soon.” 

Grover led me to the Big House. I hadn’t seen him in a long time and was surprised but pleased that he was there. “So did you get your Searcher’s license?”

He nodded. “Who told you about that?”

“Chiron,” I answered. “You did good, man.” 

Grover managed a small smile but it was soon clouded over with worry. He glanced at the sky. 

I followed his gaze. The sky was dark with heavy storm clouds. A hazy curtain of rain was coming our way. Too bad they didn’t have umbrellas at Camp. Everyone did their usual activities but they kept a nervous eye on the brewing storm. 

At the Big House, Mr. D and Chiron were playing pinochle against two invisible opponents. “Well, well,” Mr. D said without looking up. “Our little celebrity.” 

I waited. 

“If I had my way,” Dionysus said. “I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We’d sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp to keep you little brats safe from harm.” 

Funny. I wanted to do the same thing to him. I wisely kept my mouth shut. 

“Spontaneous combustion _is_ a form of harm, Mr. D,” Chiron said mildly. 

“Nonsense. Boy wouldn’t feel a thing.” Dionysus said. “Nonetheless, I’ve agreed to restrain myself. I’m thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to old Barnacle-Beard.” 

Lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Dionysus said. 

“Mr. D-” Chiron warned though it was hardly necessary. 

“Oh, all right,” Dionysus relented. “There’s one more option. But it’s deadly foolishness.” Dionysus rose and the invisible players’ cards dropped to the table. “I’m off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I’ll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you’re at all smart, you’ll see that’s a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do.” Dionysus picked up a playing card and twisted it. It became a security clearance card. He snapped his fingers.

Then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes behind. 

Chiron didn’t smile at me. “Sit down, please, both of you.” 

We did. 

“Tell me, Percy,” Chiron said, “what did you make of the Hellhound?” 

“It seems like a bad omen,” I admitted. 

“You’ll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you’re done.” 

Chiron was only talking about the one Quest that I was about to be sent on. He had no idea that there would be another after that, and then another, and another. He had no idea that there were about to be three wars fought by the Greek Demigods. 

“Will you accept your Quest?” 

I was tired all of a sudden. I looked out to the lake and longed for the peacefulness of the water. Where I didn’t have to worry about anything except luring fish into my bubble to be eaten. In the few weeks that I’d been here, I hadn’t made any progress with Luke. Things still played out the same as they had before, except when I directly intervened. People even _said_ the same things. It was like running on a treadmill from the world’s slowest monster and knowing that it would inevitably get you. 

“Lay it on me,” I said. 

Between Grover and Chiron, they told me that I was accused of being a thief. The fact that no one accused an actual thief, who had been on Olympus at the time of the theft, was so hilariously like the Gods. It was pride, stubbornness, and immaturity that prevented Zeus from rationalizing that Luke had stolen the master bolt. 

I listened in mostly silence while they explained that my father and uncle had been fighting over petty nonsense when the bolt was stolen and that because Gods couldn’t directly steal symbols of power that a demigod had been employed to do it. Honestly, Luke must have been out of his gods-damned mind to steal the master bolt from Zeus. But if Luke was out of his mind, then I belonged in a straightjacket in a rubber room. 

“And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus’s wrath.” 

Wasn’t I always?

It started to rain. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared in stunned silence at the sky. I was just as furious this time as the last time it had happened. The Gods really knew how to grate on my nerves. 

I agreed to the Quest. 

“Then it’s time you consulted the Oracle,” Chiron said. “Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you’re still sane, we will talk more.” 

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap door. I pulled the cord, the door swung down, and a wood ladder clattered into place. The warm air from above smelled like mildew, rotten wood, and snake musk. I held my breath and climbed. 

I glanced around the attic but there wasn’t anything that would be useful on my Quest. “Let’s get this over with,” I told the Oracle. 

She was a mummy, shriveled to a husk with glassy eyes. Her hippie style clothing was at odds with just how long she’d been dead. I felt bad that Rachel Elizabeth Dare would become this one day. Then I remembered: the Oracle wasn’t a demigod. She was a mortal. I didn’t want to think about the implications of that. 

The Oracle sat up and opened her mouth. Green smoke poured from it. The same card scene as before showed up, with each player giving me a piece of the prophecy. To my amazement, it hadn’t changed. Not a gods-damned thing about it had changed. Chronos was right: the Gods didn’t have their memories. Which meant that the Oracles didn’t yet know what I was up to. 

“Well?” Chiron asked me.

I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table and relayed part of the prophecy. I didn’t tell him about being betrayed or any of that nonsense. It was irrelevant, anyway. 

Chiron didn’t look satisfied. “Anything else?” 

“That’s it,” I said. “So where am I going?” 

Chiron took a long time to finally get to the point that I was going to have to go to the Underworld to retrieve the master bolt. 

Grover had started to eat the cards out of nervousness.

When Chiron finished deducing that it must be Hades who had it out for me, I announced, “I’m taking Luke and Clovis with me.” 

“Luke?” Chiron inquired. Clearly he was mostly concerned with that choice than he was with my other choice. 

“CLOVIS!?” Annabeth shouted so suddenly that Grover and I both jumped. She was invisible somewhere to my left. “You’re taking _Clovis_ over _me_?” She sounded beyond enraged and I got the feeling that this was an insult that she wouldn’t let go. Though I didn’t know why. It’s not like I’d been friendly with her. I saw her footsteps in the wet grass as she ran away from the Big House. 

Grover looked after Annabeth like he wanted to follow her. 

“I’m afraid I share some of Annabeth’s reservations,” Chiron said. “Are you sure that those are the two you want to bring? This will be a perilous mission.” 

“I’m sure, Chiron.” I said. I crossed my arms and met his gaze. “Luke and Clovis.” 

Chiron studied me for a long while. Finally he dipped his head in acquiescence. “Very well, Percy.” 

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows. 

“No time to waste,” Chiron said. “I think you should all get packing.” 

Before I left to gather my second and third, I cornered Grover by the Big House. “Grover,” I said, “Promise me that you won’t leave until after the Summer Solstice.” 

Grover cocked his head. He looked at me as though I’d grown a second head. “But Percy, I just got my Searchers license. I have to go and search for Pan.” He let out the sharp, throaty _“Blaa-ha-ha”_ that meant he was irritated. 

I put my hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Grover, _please_, I am begging you, wait until after the Summer Solstice. Please,” I repeated. “Please, just wait until then.”

Grover looked unsure. “Is this about your Quest? Because I’m not going with you and Zeus might still fry you.” 

That wasn’t exactly the vote of confidence that I wanted to hear from my best friend. But I could run with this. “If I die, I want you at my funeral. You’re my best friend. Please, Grover.” I put my hands together as though in prayer. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. 

Grover groaned. “I’ll wait, Percy. Until your Quest is over.” 

I hugged him. “Thank you.” 

Gover hugged me back. “Oh, the Council of Cloven Elders won’t like this.”

They would like it even less when they found out that Pan was dead. 

My next stop was the Hermes Cabin, which was the surest spot to find Clovis. He was curled up in a sleeping bag, drooling in his sleep. 

I laid down on the floor beside him and immediately fell under the spell of his presence. A little water could only go so far and Luke had really worn me out. In my dreams, I shouted for Clovis. 

“You’re very loud, Percy,” Clovis said from behind me.

I turned around and there he was. He wore the same unicorn footie pajamas that he wore in real life. “I’m going on a Quest and you’re coming with me.”

“Oh no,” Clovis murmured. “You should choose someone else. I’m very busy sleeping.”

“I need your powers so you’re coming with me. I'm not asking for your consent, Clovis.” 

My dreamscape suddenly shifted and there was the Wolf House looming before us. Clovis was picking through my memories. 

I threw up a mental wall of waves to block the images. “You’ll see soon enough,” I told him. “But not before I’m ready.” I paused. “And we aren’t telling Luke about any of this.” 

Clovis looked at me with watery brown eyes that didn’t seem very intelligent. “I can’t get into Luke’s dreams,” Clovis said forlornly. His stupid baby cow face actually looked worried. “Something is keeping me out.” 

“You don’t want to get into his dreams,” I replied. “Get ready to go. We leave in an hour.” With my message delivered, I forced myself to wake up. It was no easy task; Clovis gave off waves of sleepiness and I was already so tired. Why did Luke choose today of all days to have that stamina match? Did he want to wear me out so that I wasn’t at my best? 

Clovis was still asleep next to me but his brow was furrowed. “Annoying,” he muttered. That was probably as awake as he was going to be until we actually left. 

I left the Hermes Cabin and went back to the battle arena. It was still raining so I half expected Luke to not be where I left him. 

Luke still laid in the dirt, his eyes closed. It looked like he hadn’t moved. His expression wasn’t twisted into agony so I knew that he was awake. “It’s raining,” Luke said without opening his eyes. 

“Zeus is angry,” I answered. 

“You’re alive,” Luke said. His tone was neutral. I couldn’t tell if he was happy about it or not. 

“For now,” I agreed. I squatted down next to him. “Pack a bag. We’re leaving.”

He opened his eyes. “Leaving?” He echoed. 

“You’re coming with me on my Quest.” 

“No.”

“Yes.” 

“I’m not going.” 

I hadn’t expected him to refuse. “You’re going even if I’ve got to knock you out and drag you by the ankle behind me the whole way.” See, Luke coming with me on the Quest only had benefits. I could keep an eye on him, he wouldn’t be able to recruit more demigods for Kronos, he had to bring Backbiter with him, and I’d have more time to convert him to my side. 

“My last Quest -”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Luke. Get over yourself and go pack a bag.”

He gave me a look like he wanted to kill me right there. “You’re making a mistake.”

I looked around to make sure we were alone. Then I leaned closer to him. “I know you’ve got things going on that you don’t want to tell me about but I can guarantee that they’ll either follow you to Los Angeles or they’ll be here when we get back.” I sat flat on my ass in the mud and brushed my hand through his wet spiked hair. When he didn’t flinch, I took it as a good sign. “I’ve heard the Prophecy, Luke, and if you want to live then you’ll stick with me.” 

Luke’s scar shifted when he frowned. “Does it say that Luke Castellan will die if he doesn’t go with Percy Jackson on this Quest?” He made it sound like a joke. 

I didn’t smile. “Yes.” 

Luke looked away and then back at me. “You talked me into it.” He sat up. His back was covered in mud. “Are we leaving right away or do I have time for a shower?” 

I joined Luke in the showers because I was pretty gross too. The communal showers at Camp Half-Blood weren’t a good place for seduction because you never knew when someone was going to walk in on you, but more importantly, the water was icy cold. It was so cold that campers usually tried to avoid showering. Which is as gross as it sounded. Most Campers either took a dip in the much warmer lake or showered with an Apollo kid because they could warm the water up. It was rumored that the Big House had hot water but no one could confirm that. 

We packed our bags. I didn’t have much to bring with me; just an extra change of clothes, a toothbrush, and Riptide. 

Luke swapped out his sandals for his winged shoes, though the wings were tucked away. He packed an extra change of clothes, ten drachmas, and a small plastic jar of strawberry jam. He also packed an extra bundle in his backpack, something that looked sword-shaped. It had to be Backbiter because he was trying to be stealthy about it and I knew he wouldn't leave such a powerful weapon behind. 

By the time we were packed, Clovis had fully woken up from his nap. He elected to keep wearing the unicorn onesie and didn’t bother to explain himself. We would really stand out with him dressed like that but as long as he came without anymore trouble, then I was willing to let it go. I even ignored it when he pushed his feet into hard-soled slippers. He rolled his sleeping bag up and tied it with straps so that it made a backpack. He did not bring a weapon. 

Luke looked at Clovis then back at me with raised eyebrows. 

I pretended not to see his questioning look. 

The Camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. Chiron gave each of us a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares. He reminded us that an overdose would literally burn us up. 

Annabeth showed up to our departure party but it was only to say goodbye to Luke. She wished him good luck. After a second, she tucked her Yankee’s cap into the pocket of his cargo shorts. Her face was scarlet. 

Luke hugged her goodbye. He said something but I couldn’t hear. 

Annabeth looked like she might pass out. She wandered away after that but only to collapse underneath a tree and watch us from a distance. It didn’t surprise me that she completely ignored me and Clovis. 

We waved goodbye to the other campers, took one last look around Camp, and then hiked up Half-Blood Hill. Chiron introduced us to Argus, the head of security. Supposedly, he had eyes all over his body so that he could never be surprised but today he wore a chauffeur's uniform so I only saw extra eyes on his hands, face, and neck. 

Argus drove us out of the country-side and into western Long Island. Clovis was asleep in the passenger seat. He’d fallen into slumber almost as soon as his butt hit the seat. Even Luke settled back and closed his eyes. He caught me watching him. “Get some rest, Percy. If I’d had known we were going to do this, I wouldn’t have sparred with you this afternoon.” 

I pushed my backpack up against the window, rested my head on it, and then closed my eyes. Maybe it was the busy day, maybe it was the proximity of Clovis, but I fell asleep instantly. 

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe’s apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? 

I ripped it down before Luke or Clovis could see. 

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot. 

I thought about my mom trapped in the Underworld and Smelly Gabe up in our apartment, not even missing her. I could kill him now. Luke would help me if I asked him. As tempting as it was, I’d already decided against leaving a crime scene. 

The rain kept coming down. 

While we waited for the bus, Luke and I leaned against each other. We kept falling asleep only to jerk awake, check the time, and then pass out again. Clovis didn’t have that problem, naturally. He slept through the wait for the bus as soundly as though he were in his own bed. 

Finally, the bus came. As we stood in line to board, I slipped my hand into Luke’s. Something felt wrong. I was leaving on my Quest weeks earlier than I had last time, but it still felt too similar. 

“You okay?” Luke murmured to me. 

I shrugged and continued to look around. There were no monsters in sight, which didn’t mean anything. My eyes weren’t the best when it came to looking through the Mist. We got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. Luke and I kept our bags at our feet while Clovis used his as a pillow.

My paranoia must have been catching because Luke’s leg was bouncing. Suddenly, Luke squeezed my hand. “Percy,” he hissed under his breath. 

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless green-knit hat that shadowed her face. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered. An identical old lady boarded just after her, this one wearing a purple hat. They both looked like Alecto but I didn’t see Alecto’s orange hat on the bus. Apparently even she needed more time to reform. That would make this easier.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver, and crossed their legs over the walkway to make an X. 

I scrunched down in my seat. “What will the mortals see if we kill them?” I asked quietly. 

Luke hummed. “Hard to say. Do you care what the mortals think?”

I pulled the flyer and the article from my pocket and showed them to him. 

“Styx,” Luke cursed. He twisted around to look for an exit in the back of the bus. There wasn’t one. The windows didn’t open either. Then he looked at Clovis. “Clovis! You useless lump, wake up.” 

Clovis was slow to wake. He blinked awake, bovine face looking particularly stupid. But once he was awake, he noticed the Furies right away. “Well that’s troublesome,” he said mildly.

“Can you put them to sleep?” 

By that time we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel. 

“Not without putting everyone else asleep,” Clovis said mournfully. “Didn’t you pack anything useful?” 

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain. 

One of the Furies got up. “I need to use the restroom,” she announced in a flat, rehearsed tone. 

“So do I,” said the second sister. 

“Okay. I’ve got it. Percy, c’mon.” Luke kept a tight hold of my hand and dragged me into the tiny bathroom. I don’t know what the mortals saw when they looked at the celestial bronze sword that hung from Luke’s hip but I was more concerned with them wondering what a young adult was doing pulling a preteen into the restroom. 

The restroom was so small that there was barely room for the two of us. It was more of a cupboard with a toilet and tiny sink than anything. “Uh, Luke, why are we in the restroom? That door isn’t going to stop them.”

Luke pressed me against the wall opposite the door. “Just stand right there,” he said. Then he put Annabeth’s cap on. One moment he was there, the next it looked like I was standing alone in the restroom. 

I didn’t want to admit how much it scared me that he’d just vanished. But, well, it scared me more than the Furies stalking their way up the isles. As much as some part of me wanted to, I really didn’t trust Luke. For all I knew, he’d left me alone in the restroom to be eaten by Furies. Tentatively I reached out and my fingers touched something solid. I slid my fingertips up Luke’s spine and felt him shiver. 

“Megaera,” Luke called softly, seductively. They wouldn’t be able to resist their names called by a half-blood. “Tisiphone.” 

Soon enough, there were footsteps coming towards the restroom. I could hear them sniffing us out, being drawn by my scent and Luke’s voice calling their names. “Perseus Jackson,” one of the sisters said, “You have offended the Gods. You shall die.” 

“Asinum meas vescimini!” I spat back. It meant _‘eat my ass.’_

The Fury growled. And then I saw her ugly withered head poke into the restroom. Her yellow fangs dripped with saliva. “Hiding is futile.” She suddenly lurched towards us. 

Luke backed into me, squished me between his body and the wall. 

There was suddenly golden dust everywhere. 

I coughed as Fury dust got into my lungs. 

The next sister wasn’t far behind the first. The dust had vanished by the time she got to us. She looked confused that her sister was gone but the confusion turned to delight when she saw that I was unarmed. “Foolish demigod!” She lunged for me. 

Again, she burst into dust as she impaled herself on Luke’s invisible sword. 

I covered my mouth before I breathed in more of the golden dust. With my free hand, I knocked the hat off of Luke’s head. 

He came into view immediately, back still to me. 

Before he could move, I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my face into his back. My heart pounded so hard. Putting my trust in Luke, being that close to two Furies; it was scary. But it had paid off. And we hadn’t caused the bus to explode. “I told you I needed you,” I said into his back. 

“Actually, you said I was going to die if I stayed at Camp,” Luke corrected. “And that you would drag me around like a sack of meat if I refused to come with you.” 

He was right. I hadn’t actually told him that I needed him. With some finagling, I managed to get him to turn around and face me. The sword wasn’t meant for such a small space. I looked into his two blue eyes and touched his scar. We hadn’t done this for a few days, not since I’d moved to the Poseidon Cabin. “I need you,” I told him earnestly. 

Luke cupped my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. He rubbed his thumb along my jaw. I thought that he was going to bestow some great wisdom on me but all he said was, “At least now I know what color to call your eyes.” 

Sea green. 

The lighting outside changed and suddenly I realized where we were. “Luke, we have to get off this bus!” I squeezed past him and slung my backpack over my shoulders. “Clovis, get up right now!” 

Luke looked a little dazed but he scooped up Annabeth’s cap and followed me back into the aisle. “Why?”

“It’s part of the Quest!” I said back. I ran to the front of the bus and tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Sir, there are two old ladies in the back who passed out suddenly.” 

The bus driver pulled over to the side of the road. Like everyone else, he’d heard Megaera and Tisiphone announce their trip to the bathroom. He got up and lumbered towards the back. 

Luke and Clovis made their way to the front as the bus driver went to the back. 

I opened the bus door and sprinted off. 

Luke was hard on my heels, slowed down only because he had Clovis by the scruff. 

There were shouts behind us as we plunged into the woods but no one ran after us. The rain came down harder and thunder boomed threateningly close. 

So there we were, Luke and Clovis and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank. The sun had fallen long ago and the smell of the Hudson reeked in our noses. 

Clovis was shivering and whining about how much his feet hurt and how tired he was. He was a few feet behind Luke and I. 

I could feel Luke’s anger and confusion but managed to ignore it for a few miles. I wanted to run away from that anger but Luke was faster than me and we couldn’t leave Clovis behind. Finally, Luke caught up to me. “Where are we going, Percy? Why did we have to leave the bus?” 

I avoided meeting his eye. “There’s a really good burger joint up ahead.” 

Luke looked at me like I was crazy. “I brought food.”

“You brought one jar of jelly,” I countered. 

“It would have lasted until the bus stopped,” Luke retorted. He stopped walking. 

Which meant that I stopped walking too. 

After a few minutes of us staring at each other, Clovis finally caught up to us. “You two walk so fast!” He complained. 

“We’re just hungry,” I told Clovis, giving Luke a sly look. “There’s a place to get some really good food up ahead.” 

Clovis perked up at the sound of food. “Well what are you waiting for? Let’s get going. I hope they have a bed too.” He kept walking. 

I followed Clovis, then looked over my shoulder at Luke. “Aren’t you coming? You’ll get to kill more monsters.”

That caught Luke’s attention.

We walked another mile before we came across the two lane road that led to Medusa’s lair. The only source of light was from the neon sign on the gate. Beyond the gate was a low warehouse surrounded by acres of statuary. 

“What does that say?” Luke asked. 

“Bed and breakfast?” Clovis asked hopefully. 

“Auntie Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium,” I answered and walked onto the property. The statues were as creepy as before but this time I noticed their eyes following me as I walked up to the main shop. 

“Percy,” Luke started. He sighed and followed me. He caught me by the wrist before I could knock on the door. “We shouldn’t be here.” 

“But it smells so good and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” It was true, I was starving. Medusa cooked good food, too, and she was inclined to favor me because I was a son of Poseidon. My stomach growled. I gave Luke my biggest puppy dog eyes. 

Before we could argue more, the door creaked open. A tall woman wearing a long black gown that covered everything except her hands stepped out. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze. “Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?” 

“Please, ma’am, we’re orphans,” I said. 

“Orphans?” Medusa repeated. 

Luke’s hand went to his sword. 

I put my hand over his. Since Luke got to slay the Furies, I was going to take Medusa. My plan was to catch her off guard instead of the other way around. But not until I ate. “We ran away from our foster home. They were beating us.” I lifted my shirt to show off the bruises that Luke had left from our earlier spar. 

“Oh my. Poor dears,” Auntie Em crooned. “You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area.”

“Thank you. You won’t tell anyone that we were here, will you, Auntie Em?” I asked, flashing puppy dog eyes at Auntie Em. 

“Of course not, dear.” 

We went inside. The warehouse was full of more statues. 

Luke jumped when Auntie Em locked the door behind us but even he was drawn in by the delicious smell of the burgers. You’ve never smelled anything like it. Especially when you were hungry. The dining area was just as lovely as before. It looked like paradise with red booths. There was a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho-cheese dispenser. I heard Luke’s stomach rumble. 

Auntie Em disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. 

We slid into a booth. I sat beside Luke and winked at him. 

Luke looked nervous and very, very hungry. 

Soon, Auntie Em brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, chocolate shakes, and XXL servings of french fries. The food was just as good as last time. Clovis and I tucked into it immediately. 

Luke was hesitant but even he couldn’t resist the draw of a delicious meal. Once we started eating, there was no stopping. 

I hardly breathed until I had cleaned my tray. 

Auntie Em sat with us while we ate, just like last time. She ate nothing. 

“These are some intricate statues,” Luke said after he’d eaten most of his food. 

I stood up and slipped my hands into my pockets. “Is there a restroom anywhere?” 

Auntie Em twisted around to point to a door tucked into the corner. “Right through there, dear.” 

“Thanks,” I said and walked that way. 

“Do you make the statues yourself?” Luke asked, drawing Auntie Em’s attention back to him. He kept one eye on me. 

“Oh yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters -” 

I drew Riptide, uncapped the sword, and swung it. “Don’t look!” I shouted. I heard a sickening _shlock!_, then the sound of a monster disintegrating. Something fell to the ground and rolled. At least this time, I didn’t get any green juice on my shoes. 

“Was that Medusa?” Luke asked. 

“How unexpected,” Clovis commented. He sucked down his milkshake. 

I scrambled for the silver napkin dispenser and used that to look at the decapitated head. It was still covered with the veil. “I’ll be back,” I said. Then I went into the office. I pocketed the drachmas and all but one of the packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express. I wasn’t sending the box to Olympus this time. I got a box that was the right size and went back to the booth, packed up Medusa’s head, and filled out a delivery slip with the address of the apartment my mom and Gabe shared. I wrote things that I hoped would entice him to open the package like _‘YOU WON’_. I was smart enough not to sign my name at the bottom. 

“Hermes Overnight Express?” Luke read over my shoulder. 

I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a _pop._ “There,” I said when Medusa’s head was on its way to my stepdad. “Now we can get back to this stupid Quest.” 

“Stupid?” Luke repeated. “You think the Quest is stupid?”

I looked at him. “Luke, I don’t care about retrieving Zeus’ master bolt or saving the world or getting my dad out of trouble. I’m not doing this for that.” 

He looked shocked. “Then why are you doing it? Why did you accept?” 

I glanced at the sky - it wasn’t thundering any more than usual - then back at Luke. “I’m doing this for revenge.” 

Luke looked like he might throw up all the food he’d just wolfed down. 

While Clovis napped in the booth and Luke poked around the warehouse, I walked down to the gas station. From the store, I found a couple of old gas cans. Gasoline wasn’t close enough to being water for me to control it so I had to get the fuel pumping the old fashioned way. The guys in the movies make it look easy and like it’s no big deal but let me tell you, it was disgusting. It turned out that the closed gas station still had a little fuel. 

I filled up the gas cans and then went back inside the store for some matches. I found them behind the counter and filled my pockets. Who knew how much arson I was going to commit in the future? With my fuel and my fire starters, I returned to the warehouse. The first thing I did was gargle some soda to get the taste of gasoline out of my mouth. 

Luke’s backpack was fuller and he looked a little bulkier all around. “What are those for?”

“Get everything you wanted?” I asked him. 

He nodded. 

“Go get Clovis. Wait for me across the street.” I waited until Luke did as I asked. Then I walked around the warehouse, leaving a trail of gasoline behind me. It wasn’t much, to be honest. It probably wouldn’t even slow Kronos down or completely stop him from taking over the warehouse to use as his base of operations. But I couldn’t think of anything else to do. As I struck the match, I felt a little bad for the statues. Hopefully they were beyond physical feeling. The trail ended in the office, where there was the most paperwork and therefore the biggest pile of flammables. 

I dropped the match then booked it to where Luke and Clovis were waiting. Behind me, I heard the hiss of fire and felt the heat as it ran along the accelerant. “We gotta go!” I shouted as I ran past them and back into the woods. 

Luke followed immediately. He cursed the entire time. 

Clovis groaned but he set off at a slow, awkward jog after us. 

We were back in the woods. The rain slowed to a mist but everything was still wet from the earlier downpour. We trekked through the marshy ground, looking for somewhere dry to stop for the night. I was so tired that I ran into a tree. Thankfully my companions didn’t see: Clovis was twelve feet behind us and Luke was in front of me. 

At the top of a hill, Clovis stopped walking. “I refuse to go another step. I’m tired and I’m cold and I’ve been awake for far too long.” 

Luke looked at me. “This is your Quest, kid. But for the record, I also think we should stop.” His shoulders stooped with exhaustion. 

I swayed where I stood. The top of the hill was drier than the bottom but it was still wet. There were large, wide pines but I wasn’t sure how much cover they would be from the rain. “Okay. We’ll stop here.” 

Clovis unraveled his sleeping bag and squeezed beneath one of the pines. It’s branches hung so low to the ground that they touched his potbelly. 

I looked at Luke. “Can we risk sleeping beneath a tree? We’ll be toast if _you-know-who_ decides to start the lightning up again.” 

Luke squinted at the cloudy sky. “We’re sitting ducks either way.”

“Right.” I wished that we had brought our own sleeping bags because now we had to sleep on the cold, damp ground. Well, maybe not damp. I pushed the water deeper into the ground so that the topsoil was dry. 

Luke lifted his backpack off his shoulders with a groan of pain. He opened it and pulled out a large, white length of heavy fabric. “Spread that out beneath the tree, Percy.” 

The heavy white material was canvas. It was a little rough against my palms but it would be better than sleeping in the dirt. Well, it would be better for Luke. I could only hope that he would share. I crawled beneath the pine tree and spread the canvas out on the side opposite of Clovis. 

When I crawled back out, Luke was pulling long lengths of black fabric from beneath his shirt. There was something familiar about it but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He handed the first length to me. It was longer than I was tall and could wrap around me twice. Luke unwrapped a second length of fabric and wrapped himself in it like a blanket. 

When he saw me just standing there, Luke took the fabric from me and wrapped it around my shoulders. “It smells like reptiles and sweat but I figure it’s better than being cold.” 

It clicked for me, then. “This is Medusa’s.” I wrinkled my nose. 

“They were in her closet,” Luke replied. He nudged me towards the tree. 

Looks like he was going to share after all. 

I crawled back onto the canvas and laid on my side facing away from the tree. 

Luke crawled in under me. The branches scraped his shoulders. With no more effort than it would take to move a colt, Luke rolled me onto my other side so that I was facing the tree trunk and Clovis on the other side. Then he settled in behind me. He was too tall to stretch out so he curled into a ball. The only part of him that touched me was his knees to the backs of my thighs but I could feel the heat radiating from his body. His sword lay between us. 

I fell asleep as soon as we were settled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I know that most sword fights only last two minutes, tops. But that's when people are trying to kill each other. This is just them fighting each other, picking up their swords, and going again and again and again. 
> 
> Also, I've written up to chapter 9. So keep with it, I promise that I'm not going to ditch this story.


	5. Luke & I Go Through The Tunnel Of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "I'm going to copy Rick's writing style!"  
Also Me: Writes absolutely nothing like Rick.
> 
> Luke is here asking the important questions that readers also ask me. 
> 
> Corrections corner: I thought Miranda and Katie Gardiner were in the Hermes Cabin because they're listed as temporary members on the Wiki but it turns out, I misunderstood. However, I'm not changing it. We'll just pretend that there's a third child of Demeter who is currently head of the Demeter Cabin.

  
Luke’s nightmares woke me up just like they did every night that we slept in close proximity. I was tangled in the dark fabric from Medusa’s lair but freed myself enough to roll over. 

It was too dark to see. I inched my hand closer to Luke until I found the firm muscle of his chest. 

His pulse jackhammered against the pads of my fingers. Truth be told, I didn’t want to know whatever nightmares Kronos gave Luke. I’d dismissed this aspect before but I’d never seen it first hand. I’m pretty sure that the only reason Luke didn’t scream was because his jaw was clenched so tight that he couldn’t do anything except whimper. 

I ran my fingers through his hair and along the side of his face, down to his neck, while I hummed Nico’s lullaby. Sleep kept tugging at my consciousness, trying to pull me back under. It wasn’t even dawn yet. I’d been going nonstop since yesterday. 

When Luke’s noises of distress ceased, I finally let myself fall back into sleep. I was too tired to pull my hand back or even roll over again. 

We slept well into the morning. I woke up suddenly though nothing in particular seemed to have caused it. The arm that was stretched towards Luke’s spot felt like pins and needles. 

Luke wasn’t laying beside me but I didn’t panic because I could see him sitting with his back to me a few feet away. 

Clovis snored behind me. 

I stretched and got a face full of wet pine needles for my trouble. I emerged from beneath the tree like a fox from the den, leaving my makeshift blanket behind. The mist was even lighter this afternoon but thunder rumbled in the distance. 

Luke was staring into the woods, eating from the jar of jelly with a plastic spoon. He didn’t look totally awake yet, so I figured he must have gotten up only a little before I did. 

Now that I wasn’t in danger of pine needles, I stretched luxuriously. By the end of it, I felt loose and satisfied. I flopped down beside Luke so close that our knees and elbows were touching. 

Luke glanced at me but otherwise didn’t acknowledge my presence. 

We sat side by side in silence until my stomach growled. 

Luke scooped up some jelly and silently offered it to me. 

I closed my mouth around the spoon and sucked the jelly off it. The taste reminded me of Camp. 

When I let the spoon go, Luke scooped more and offered it to me again. He did this until there was no more jelly left. It was a little weird to be fed but I figured that Luke taking care of me was better than Luke trying to kill me. 

“I should have brought more,” Luke said as he stared into the empty jar. 

“We’ll find another place to eat.”

“How did you know about Medusa’s lair?” 

Shit. 

“One of my old schools is around here. There were rumors about kids going missing in the area, being turned into statues. That was before I knew all of this was real but I thought that if...if she really was here…” 

Luke twisted the lid back onto the jar and tucked it back into his backpack. “You sent her head to your stepdad.”

I nodded but didn’t relax just because it seemed like Luke had accepted my answer. “There are some people that the world is better off without.” 

Luke turned to me and tipped my chin up so that we were making eye contact. “Let me look at those pretty sea greens of yours,” Luke murmured. He looked into my eyes, searching for something again. 

I trailed my finger down his scar, eye to jaw. It was a reflex now. 

Luke caught my hand. His pupils were dilated. “I get why you wanted me,” he began in a tone that implied he did not understand whatsoever. “But why in the world did you want _Clovis_?” 

“I need him,” I answered, looking at our hands. He’d let me hold his a few times. Would he let me now? 

“Annabeth would have been better. Or even Grover.” Luke protested. He flipped my hand so that my palm faced the sky and traced Poseidon’s symbol onto it with his nail. 

I almost laughed but that would ruin whatever moment we were happening. “Not for this,” I said. “By the way, we’ve got a few more side quests to go on.” 

“More side quests?” Luke looked puzzled. His expression told me that modern heros didn’t do side quests. “You mean the main Quest and the Medusa side quest wasn’t enough for you?” His brow furrowed. “Are you planning to kill more people?”

With a twist of my wrist, I laced our fingers together. “I’m going to see a friend.” Though he doesn’t know we’re friends. 

“Kid, we don’t have time for that.”

“I’ve got plenty of time for that.” 

“You might think you will, but things come up -”

“Nothing will come up,” I promised.

“How would you know? You’ve never even been on a Quest.” Luke was losing his patience with me. He squeezed my hand so hard that I flinched, then he forced himself to relax. 

It was my turn to rotate Luke’s hand and trace patterns into his skin. “I know it’s a lot to ask from you but I need you to trust me. Believe in me. I won’t lead you astray.” 

Luke looked tired but it was nothing compared to how exhausted he would look by the end. “Who are you going to kill?”

Slowly I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him. Things hadn’t yet been set into place. I had to convince Jason, I had to free the Di Angelo siblings. 

Luke cocked his head. “Mortals?”

“Mortals always die in demigod wars,” I replied evasively. Gabe was the only one I was going to kill on purpose. And maybe one more. I hadn’t decided yet if I could afford to spare her life. 

“You’re expecting a war. But it doesn’t have to do with this Quest?” Luke guessed. 

I trailed two fingers down Luke’s wrist to empathize my point. “We need to recover what was stolen.” Gently, I pushed Luke’s hand away. I pulled my hands into my lap to put some distance between us. If I told him too much, it would go directly to Kronos. I couldn’t let Kronos stop me and I refused to accept his ‘help.’ How was I supposed to sway Luke without giving everything away? 

Luke looked like he was going to argue with me. 

At that moment, I spotted something pink in my peripherals. “Gladiola!” I called. 

The little pink poodle stopped walking and turned to look at us. 

Luke twisted his head around to look too. “That’s a poodle.” 

“His name is Gladiola. Say hi,” I replied. I got to my feet and walked over to the pink dog. “Hi Gladiola,” I said softly. 

Luke groaned. “Why are you so strange?” He asked. But he grumbled hello to the dog. “It’s not even a monster. Or a spirit.” 

“You’re right. He’s just a very generous dog.” I held out my hand for Gladiola to sniff. 

It was a relief when Gladiola didn’t growl at me. 

“My friends and I need your help. Can we return you to the family to collect the reward money?” I asked. 

Gladiola looked at Luke and then at Clovis, still asleep beneath the pine tree. He looked into my eyes and then very deliberately nodded. 

“Oh my gods,” Luke whispered. 

“Remember that conversation we had about believing in me? Happened just a few minutes ago?” I glanced at Luke and grinned. To Gladiola, I said, “Thank you for your kindness.” 

Luke packed up our bedding and woke Clovis up. Ten minutes later, we were on our way to return Gladiola and collect the $200 reward. 

We used the reward money to take the Amtrak west and combined with the money Camp Half-Blood had given me, we could afford the sleeper car. We would only get to Denver but I wasn’t worried about the rest of the trip. I’d figure it out as we went. I was also travelling with a thief so I figured that we could put Luke’s talent to use. 

The sleeper only had two beds, with the bottom bunk being a little bigger than the top. Since neither of us wanted to sleep with Clovis, he got the top bunk to himself. 

Luke just looked at me and gave a resigned sigh. 

Our first night on the Amtrak, I had my first Kronos dream. He tried the usual intimidation and seduction bullshit as last time, all wrapped up in a pretty black bow. _“I won’t help you,”_ I told him. And then I threw back my head and laughed. 

Luke shook me awake. “Percy,” he said. “Percy!” His eyes were wide in the dim lighting of the sleeper car but I thought he looked scared. 

I was still laughing. “What?” I whispered.

“Who were you dreaming about?” Luke asked. His face was creased with worry lines. 

I brushed my knuckles against his unmarred cheek and chuckled again. This wasn’t important. Now that Kronos had interrupted my dream once, I should be able to go back to a normal dream. I didn’t normally have prophetic, interrupting dreams twice in one evening. “What did I say?” I asked sleepily. 

“You said _‘I won’t help you’_ and then you started laughing.” Now that he said it out loud, Luke looked even more uncomfortable. His hand was on his sword, which never left its place on his hip. 

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” I evaded and giggled again. I rolled onto my side, facing Luke, and snuggled into his warmth. “Lemme go back to bed.” 

“Percy, who were you talking to?” Luke’s tone was stern, one that I had only heard after he deserted Camp Half-Blood.

“Kronos,” I mumbled against his chest. I felt his heart skip a beat. “He asked me to be his pawn. But I told him to go fuck himself.” 

“You what?” Luke’s voice cracked. His heart beat faster, harder. The hand that he put on my shoulder was cold and clammy even through my shirt. 

“I’m not going to be anyones pawn. Not the Gods, and not Kronos.” I pulled my arm free from between our bodies and reached up to stroke his hair. It was almost second nature by now. “Wait,” I muttered, “I forgot to tell him to go fuck himself. Next time.” 

Luke was literally shaking head to toe. He made noises like he was trying to talk but the words got stuck in his throat. 

I’d seen a lot of panic attacks in my day. I’d had my fair share of them too, especially when I got older and the danger was ‘over’. Luke’s panic attack woke me right up. Before doing anything, I checked his eyes. Still two blues. “Look at me. The feelings you have about the Gods are valid. You’re _right_ and there’s still time to fix things.” I tipped his chin up. “Kronos is weak, Luke. He’s taken millenia to reform and he _still_ needs demigods to believe him in to have the strength to take over a _host_. A host, Luke. He isn’t even strong enough to make his own physical form.” 

I didn’t know what else to say without telling him everything. And honestly? I wasn’t sure that telling him everything right now was a good idea. It wasn’t just because I didn’t fully trust him, but that was a lot of bad shit to take in while you were already having a panic attack. So I repeated what I’d told him, over and over, and I stroked his hair back from his eyes. 

Slowly, Luke’s breathing returned to normal. The shaking subsided. 

“I’m gonna go back to sleep,” I told him. 

Luke nodded. 

I pulled my arm back to tuck it between our bodies and after a few moments, I was asleep again. 

Towards the end of the second day on the Amtrak, we passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis. Neither Clovis nor Luke were interested in sightseeing so I wouldn’t be plunging to my death. Hopefully. 

We didn’t have the money for a ride to Los Angeles. But it didn’t matter, because we had to go to San Francisco first. I hadn’t told them yet just how far out of the way it would be but they would figure it out. 

“We need a ride,” I told Luke and privately hoped that Ares wouldn’t show up at this moment. Getting Medusa’s head and going to visit Jason were both things I could talk them into. I didn’t know how to talk Luke into going to a closed water park. 

“C’mon. I’ve got an idea.” 

We walked to the nearest hotel and Luke told us to wait on the sidewalk out front. 

“Your dreams were difficult to get into on the train, Percy,” Clovis said once Luke had gone away. 

“What did I tell you about waiting?” I scolded Clovis. If I didn’t need him, I wouldn’t have ever taken him. But this time around, Clovis was going to be useful for something. At least until I figured out how to do it on my own. 

Luke returned and gestured for us to follow him. All Luke did was steal a set of keys from a valet but he assured me that this way was easier than hotwiring the car. We walked through the parking garage until we found the right car and then I bolted for the driver's seat. 

Clovis went for the backseat. 

Luke didn’t let me close the drivers side door, blocked the way with his body. “Move it, kid,” Luke said. 

“I can drive,” I insisted, both hands on the wheel. I looked over the dashboard...or tried to. The seat was a little low. Or maybe it was just me. Man, I hated being short. 

“You’re a wanted criminal,” Luke replied, holding up my wanted poster. Gods-damn it. “Plus, you’re twelve. You’re gonna draw a lot of attention from the mortal police.” 

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Fine. Fine. You can drive.” I didn’t move from my spot and not just because Luke was in my way. “But only if you take us to San Francisco.” 

Luke’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That’s a six and a half hour drive out of our way.”

I nodded even though I’d had no idea it was that far out of the way. Provided it didn’t take too long to get Jason on board, that was at least one day lost. Probably closer to two. “We have the time.”

“How did I get stuck with you?” Luke said. He watched the birds fly by. Any moment now, someone would realize that we were three teenagers hijacking a car. Or the owner would come back. We didn’t even look like we were related. The cops would peg us as runaways in a heartbeat and Luke was nineteen so he’d be labeled a creep. 

“Side quest, Luke!” I insisted. “It’s been two years since you were last out of Camp and three before that. Are you really so eager to go back right away?” 

Luke cursed profusely. “Fine. Side quest. Again.” Then he gestured for me to climb over the center console. “Fucking San Francisco. Of all the fucking places.” 

I quickly climbed over the console and bounced excitedly in my seat. Luke agreed! 

He put the car into reverse and then backed out of the parking spot. “You gonna light something else on fire?” 

I grinned. “Probably not.”

Luke didn’t look reassured. It was so strange that he had reservations about my mayhem considering all of the damage he was going to do in the future. If I didn’t stop him. Maybe it was because Kronos would be angry that I’d stolen his top lieutenant. Luke kept one eye on traffic and the other on me. “So whos next on your hit list, Percy?” 

I laughed. “I already told you that we’re going to see a friend.” 

“Who in the Underworld do you know on the West coast?” 

“His name is Jason. And...you’ll be interested in him too.” 

“Why?” 

“Because he’s Thalia’s little brother.” I turned the radio on. “_Demigod_ brother,” I emphasized. I spent a few minutes playing with the dials and not finding anything good to listen to. So I dug through the glove compartment. Inside was one of those old CD binders. “Nickelback? 50 Cent? Kelly Clarkson? What year is it?” 

“2005,” Luke said dryly.

I inhaled deeply. “Linkin Park. Okay. We can do that.” 

“I’m tired of being what you want me to be / feeling so faithless, lost under the surface / I don’t know what you’re expecting of me / put under the pressure of walking in your shoes / caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow / every step that I take is another mistake to you -”

I popped the CD out of the player. “Next.” 

Luke glanced at me. “That was a good song.”

I laughed humorlessly. “You would think that.” We were definitely not going to be listening to songs with lyrics like that. No need to remind Luke of everything he hated. “Evanescence,” I decided. 

“How can you see into my eyes like open doors? / leading you down, into my core / where I’ve become so numb, without a soul / my spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold / until you find it there, and lead it, back, home / wake me up inside -”

I tossed the CD into the back seat. “Eminem it is, then.” 

“Percy, I swear to the gods if we listen to this album one more time, I’m going to throw it and you out the window.” Luke glared at me. He looked almost evil with his scar lit up by the dashboard lights. 

To be perfectly honest, I was tired of listening to it too. I rolled down my window and threw the CD out of it. My ears rang in the silence. 

We’d been driving for eight hours and weren’t even halfway to San Francisco according to the atlas we’d ‘borrowed’ from a gas station. 

Luke reached for his coffee and took a sip. The shadows around his eyes looked darker. 

“Getting tired?” I asked. 

“Just tired of listening to Eminem,” Luke said. Any chance that I might have believed him was broken by him yawning. When he was done yawning, he shook his head and blinked a few times. He sat up straighter. 

“We could stop.”

“Not in a rush for this one?”

“Not in a rush to get into another car accident,” I countered. I touched my neck where the seat belt had left a scar. My skin broke out in goosebumps.

Luke yawned again. “Okay. I’ll pull over at the next exit.” 

There was nothing at the next exit, not even a gas station. Luke drove the car a little ways along the road and then put it into park. He turned off the ignition and sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes. He clipped the key to his belt loop and gave me a stern look. Then he climbed into the back seat next to Clovis. The Evanescence CD I’d thrown back there was thrown back at me. 

So here’s the thing. The car Luke stole? Didn’t need to have the key in the ignition. It was one of those cars where you push the button while hitting the brake and the engine started. So all I had to do was wait for Luke to fall asleep and climb into the driver's seat. 

It didn’t take long for him to pass out. 

I got into the driver's seat, and adjusted it so that I could mostly see out the windshield. I tucked one leg beneath me to gain some height and smiled. Then I popped the Evanescence CD back into the player. Hey, I liked her voice, alright? Luke probably couldn’t handle the emo lyrics but I sure as fuck could. I started the car and pulled back onto the freeway. 

Luke slept in the backseat for a solid six hours before I heard him stir. It seemed like his nightmares were over for now.  
I’d since turned the radio off and was now driving in silence. I couldn’t feel my foot and my ass hurt from sitting on it so much. We needed to get out of this car. 

Luke ruffled my hair, said “Brat” and then proceeded to check out what was in the trunk of the car. A few minutes and some rustling later, and I heard, “Percy, don’t look in the back.” 

Well now I had to look. “Is there a body?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the road. 

A pause. “No.” 

“You don’t sound sure,” I said. A body would stink, right? 

“It isn’t a body,” Luke said confidently. 

I angled the car towards the shoulder of the road and put the hazard lights on. Then I crawled into the back seat. Clovis took up two thirds of the bench seat. I had to squeeze beneath Luke’s arm to peer into the trunk. There was a single square brick of some white substance. “Is that cocaine?” 

“I think so,” Luke said. 

“Huh.” I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with a car full of cocaine. “Should we snort it?” 

Luke was startled into a laugh. “No way, kid.” He rested his chin on my head. “Especially not _you._” 

I didn’t want to do cocaine but I was strangely offended. “What? You think I can’t handle it?” 

“Honestly? No. If you went crazy with your powers, you could kill everyone between here and the nearest ocean.” 

“The Pacific,” I said absently. That made sense. I’d never heard of any demigods who did drugs anyway. Maybe that was why. “Cocaine is a party drug, right?” 

Luke looked wary. “Yeah,” he said shortly. 

“Do you think Mr. D does coke?” I asked. 

Luke laughed again and his wariness melted away. “He’s probably tried it at least once.” He left the conversation at that and returned to the driver's seat. 

Almost the exact moment we rolled into Denver, the car ran out of gas. We sat on the side of the freeway in stunned surprise. 

“Don’t tell me we have to walk again,” Clovis groaned from the back seat. 

Luke tapped the gas gauge with a finger but the needle didn’t move from the F. “It must be broken.” 

I squinted suspiciously at the needle and then looked out the windshield. There it was: a gleaming chrome diner just a mile up the road. I growled low in my throat. 

Luke looked at me in surprise. 

“Let’s go get something to eat,” I suggested and pointed at the diner. 

“Oh yes. Let’s do that. I haven’t eaten in forever,” Clovis agreed. 

“You ate fifty miles back at the McDonald’s,” Luke reminded him. But he unclipped the key from his belt and got out of the car. 

I waited until Clovis and Luke retrieved their bags from the trunk before getting mine. I took my extra change of clothes out of my backpack and slipped the brick of cocaine into it. Then I hurried to catch up with them. “We don’t have any money,” I commented. 

“Dine and dash,” Luke answered. He held the door open for us. 

The diner was crowded with families eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas. There was an old fashioned juke box in the corner and on every table there was a mini one where you could request songs. 

I checked the song list. “Luke, Luke I need quarters.” I tugged on his sleeve. 

“Tell that to the five Big Macs you ate,” Luke replied. 

“Please, Luke. It’s gonna be so good.” 

“Do I look like I’ve got quarters on me?” 

“This is a chance to make history, Luke.” 

Luke growled at me. Then he got up. I lost sight of him pretty quickly and realized that he was wearing Annabeth’s Yankees cap again. A few minutes later, Luke was back with a handful of quarters. “Brat,” he snapped at me. 

I kissed his cheek. 

Luke scowled. 

I dragged the quarters to my side of the table and began to feed them into the mini juke. 

Finally, the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Well?” 

“We want to order dinner,” I answered tartly. 

“You kids have money to pay for it?” To be fair, we hadn’t showered since we’d left Camp Half-Blood. And I could only speak for Luke and I; who knew when Clovis last showered. Our clothes were dirty and the backpacks didn’t help our cause. 

“Obviously,” I said, gesturing to the quarters I hadn’t yet spent. 

Before she could respond, there was a loud rumble that shook the whole building. A motorcycle pulled up to the curb. The motorcycle’s headlights glared red. Its case tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns.

All conversation in the diner stopped.

Ares was dressed in a red muscle shirt, black jeans, and a black leather jacket. A hunting knife was strapped to his thigh. His scarred face was handsome but in a wicked way. As he walked into the diner, accompanied by a hot, dry wind, Tom Jones's voice came over the speakers. “What’s new pussycat?” 

I couldn’t have done it better if I’d planned it. I laughed with the abandon of someone who has been too close to death a few too many times. 

All the mortals rose and Ares waved his hand dismissively. They all sat down and everything went back to normal. 

The waitress asked again, “You kids have money to pay for it?”

Luke visibly paled at the sight of Ares and he looked at me like he wasn’t sure which one of us was the craziest. 

Clovis did a double take. “Is that -“

“Cousin Ares!” I shouted and waved him over to our table as though he was going to sit anywhere else. I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to tear out his intestines with my teeth. 

“Percy!” Luke hissed and pulled me back onto the booth. He fiddled with the Yankees cap in his lap as though he wanted to put it on and disappear. 

Ares slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Clovis up against the window. “It’s on me,” he told the waitress.

Clovis looked like he was being squeezed through a tube. 

Luke had slouched down in his seat. 

“Thanks, cousin Ares,” I said through gritted teeth. Being around Ares always brought out the worst in me. I wanted a fight and surprisingly, it wasn’t just Ares that I wanted to fight. I wanted to punch Luke in the face, to break his bones, until he surrendered to me and accepted that my way was the only way. Beneath the table, I curled my hands into fists. 

Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should have been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. “I heard you broke Clarisse’s spear. And her ankle.”

“She was asking for it.” 

“Probably. That’s cool. I don’t fight my kids’ fights, you know? What I’m here for, I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you.” 

The waitress came back with heaping trays of food; cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate malts. 

Ares handed her a few drachmas.

She looked nervously at the coins. “But, those aren’t…”

Ares pulled out his big hunting knife and started cleaning his fingernails. “Problem, sweetheart?” 

The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.

None of us said anything. I waited. 

“I need you to do me a favor,” Ares said. 

I tucked into my cheeseburger. “What favor could I do for a god?” 

“Something a god doesn’t have time to do himself. It’s nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little...date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me.” 

I sighed. “Another fetch quest.” 

_What’s New Pussycat_ came on for the third time. Some of the diners were beginning to realize that the song was playing more than once. 

“You Gods sure are helpless,” I said, casually licking the ketchup off my fingers. 

The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter. 

“You’re lucky you met me, punk, and not one of the other Olympians. They’re not as forgiving of rudeness as I am.” Ares sneered. It was easy to see where his kids got the look from. “A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Percy Jackson. Will you prove yourself a coward?” He leaned forward. “Or maybe you only fight when there’s a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you.” 

I put a french fry in my mouth. “What do I get out of this fetch quest?” 

Ares’ fiery eyes made me see blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. “I won’t turn you three into prairie dogs.” 

Even though I didn’t want to see images of mortal battlefields, I’d already seen this before. It wasn’t as scary the second time around. “I don’t think you’ll turn Luke into a prairie dog,” I purred and linked my arm through Luke’s. 

“Percy, don’t test him,” Luke muttered to me. His hands were cold. 

“You should listen to your boyfriend, Jackson.” Ares bared his teeth. “I’ll meet you back here when you’re done. Don’t disappoint me.” 

When I opened my eyes again, Ares was gone. The motorcycle was gone. 

Clovis melted away from the window with a long exhale. He stared at me with genuine fear in his eyes. “I guess you aren’t the only one who wants us to go on side quests.” 

The diners around us had definitely begun to realize that _What's New Pussycat_ was on repeat. The staff looked up at the speakers like they wished they could turn it off. 

Luke looked pissed. “Percy, you can’t talk to the Gods like that. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like them.”

“He was nervous about something,” I replied. 

Luke let his head thunk back against the booth. “If you fail on the main Quest, our friend upstairs is going to punish us all, Percy. And you _will_ fail if we’re all prairie dogs.”

“He needs us,” I insisted. 

We stayed in the diner until the seventh replay of _What’s New Pussycat_, which was when Luke had finally had enough. He still hadn’t forgiven me for the Eminem CD. I tried to tell him that we were missing out on history but he wouldn’t listen to me. 

We made it to the water park while the sun was still high in the sky. The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry waterslides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and advertisements fluttered in the breeze. The place looked sad and empty even in the light of day. 

“Classy place,” I commented. 

“How do we get in?” Clovis asked, pointing to the lock. 

I looked at Luke. 

“On it,” he said. Luke walked over to the lock and whispered something to it. The lock opened and the chain slithered to the ground. 

“Thank Gods. I thought we were going to have to climb,” Clovis said as he walked through the gate.

“_Can_ you climb?” I asked him. As I passed by Luke, I flashed him a smile. 

Clovis huffed and elected not to answer. 

No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise. We passed by the attractions but didn’t stop until we came to a souvenir shop. There were t-shirts, bathing suits, and all sorts of accessories in the windows. 

I made a beeline for the racks of clothes, already stripping. 

“Percy, what are you doing?” Luke asked.

“He’s gone mad,” Clovis said. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Nothing he does makes sense.” 

Luke elbowed Clovis but he didn’t outright disagree with him. 

“Fresh clothes!” I called out to them. I selected a blue Waterland t-shirt and found a pair of sneakers. The souvenir shop didn’t sell clean underwear but I figured going commando wouldn’t be too bad. I couldn’t find any shorts except for a pair of red flower-print ones that were probably for girls but who was I to be picky? Now all I needed was a hot shower and a bar of soap. 

Luke and Clovis were just walking in as I was zipping up the shorts. “Those are very…”

“So many adjectives you could choose, Luke. Small. Tiny. Short. Tight.” Clovis chimed in. He reluctantly shed his unicorn onesie and slipped into a hawaiian print shirt and pair of swimming trunks. It was the first time I had ever seen his legs and their paleness made his face look dirty. 

“Red,” Luke finished. 

“I need pockets,” I said defensively as I squeezed Riptide into the pockets of my new shorts. Why were these pockets so tiny? How did girls handle this? Is that why they always carried purses? 

Luke carefully emptied his pockets and set the bronze sword on the counter. Then he striped naked. He still wasn’t wearing underwear, which made me wonder if that was a choice or if they just didn’t stock his size at Camp. “Those are shit pockets,” Luke said as he walked by me to look at his choices. As he realized that the red flower-print shorts were the only shorts with pockets, Luke cursed. 

I slided up to him and grinned. “Looks like we’re gonna match.” 

Luke pulled a hoodie off the rack and tossed it onto my head. “You’re gonna freeze, kid.” 

The hoodie was nice and it would be easier to keep Riptide in it, so I slipped it on. I felt so much better not having a pen stabbing me in the leg. 

By the time I got the hoodie on, Luke had squeezed into a pair of shorts. He stuck his fingers in his pockets and could barely get them in to the second knuckle. He scowled. “Pathetic,” he grumbled. 

If the shorts were short on me - and they were, only reaching to about halfway down my thigh - then they were even shorter on him. The one thing I could say for them was that they definitely showed off his long, muscular legs very nicely. And Luke’s ass wasn’t the only part of him those little red shorts hugged. 

My mouth filled with saliva. I was suddenly grateful for the hoodie because it hid my boner. 

Luke paired the shorts with a button up in a slightly less obnoxious pattern than the one Clovis wore. The shirt showed off his collarbones. It was really too bad that he wasn’t Apollo’s son because then we wouldn’t be able to keep a shirt on him. 

“He looks like a walking wet dream, doesn’t he?” Clovis said to me. He shoved snacks into a backpack. 

“He’s definitely a snack,” I agreed. My face was hot; I didn’t like being called out. 

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Luke asked from the counter where he was trying to fit his stuff into his new pockets. He gazed longingly at the shorts on the floor. 

“When you say things like that, it makes you sound old,” I informed him. Since all of this stuff was technically free, I grabbed anything that caught my interest and squeezed it into my backpack. 

Clovis snorted. “He _is_ old. Look at him.” He opened a bag of chips. 

I looked at Luke again. He didn’t look old, exactly. Just tired and beaten down. 

Luke rolled his eyes. He shoved his feet back into the winged shoes. It was strange that he was the one wearing them but so far he hadn’t suggested that I take them. “You two ready to get this over with?” 

I stretched my arms above my head. “Might as well.” The change of clothes was really nice and now that we had snacks, the morale was really boosted. Clovis only complained half as much as usual and Luke let me hold his hand as we walked through the park. 

We stopped when we came to an empty pool at least fifty yards across. Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire. On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read: THRILL RIDE O’ LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS TUNNEL OF LOVE! 

Luke eyed the Cupid statues like they were going to attack us. 

Clovis ambled towards the edge and pointed. “That was easy.” 

Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the light, was a polished circle of bronze. Ares’ shield. 

“Too easy,” Luke muttered. 

I started down the side of the pool. “Clovis, you coming?” 

Clovis scuffed. “Not in your dreams, loverboy. I’ll keep watch.” 

“Luke?” 

“Right behind you,” Luke said. 

We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat and next to it was a lady’s silk scarf. I picked up the scarf and shoved it in my backpack. That would come in handy later. There were mirrors everywhere, angled so that no matter which directions we looked, we could see ourselves. Now that I was older and wiser, I understood the appeal of mirrors while having sex. All things considered, this wasn’t as bad a spot as I used to think it was. 

Luke reached for the shield. His hand shimmered with the metal filament Hephaestus used as a tripwire. “Fuck.” 

The noise of grinding gears erupted all around us as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine. Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into a firing position. 

Luke pulled me under the cover of the boats’ canopy; for all the good that would do. 

They shot at each other across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows and anchored where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main strands, making a net. 

“Hephaestus!” Luke spat. “We have to get out!” 

“Duh!” I said but any moment there would be -

The Cupids’ heads popped open. Out came the video cameras and spot lights. A loudspeaker voice boomed: “Live to Olympus in one minute...fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight…” 

“Guys, you’re in trouble,” Clovis called unhelpfully from the rim of the pool. 

Luke had some choice words for Clovis. 

“Thirty, twenty-nine,” called the loudspeaker. 

The row of mirrors opened up like hatches and thousands of metallic spiders poured out. Their bodies were bronze-gear, spindly legs, and little pincher mouths. They scuttled towards us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal. 

“Fuck,” Luke cursed again. He drew his sword and swung at the spiders but they were replaced as quickly as he could hit them. 

I strapped Ares’ shield to my arm. Then I channeled my powers. There were pipes right over there, behind the mirrors. This was easy and not just because I’d done it before. Within a matter of seconds, water exploded from the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I fastened my seat belt. “Luke! Sit!” 

“Ten, nine -” 

Luke sat down and fastened his seat belt too. 

And not a moment too soon. The tidal wave slammed into the side of the boat and then over the top. We were soaked but not capsized. The boat turned, lifted, and spun in circles around the whirlpool. 

The mechanical spiders were short-circuiting and the ones that didn’t hit the side of the pool with so much force that they burst apart. 

“Two, one, _zero!_” The Cupid cams were rolling, live to Olympus. 

We rose with the water level, nearly getting shredded on the metal net above us. I forced the current to take us into the mouth of the tunnel. We were surrounded by darkness. Random flashes of Valentine’s Day stuff came out of the darkness; Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other heterosexual couples. 

“I lost my sword,” Luke said.

I could barely focus on that right now; I was too busy trying to slow the speed of the current. Normally it didn’t matter how much destructive force I put into these things but now we needed to stop. And hopefully before we got crushed or landed on hard asphalt. 

We came out into daylight and the Gates Of Love loomed before us. There was a chain spread across them and two half sunken boats in the way besides. We were still going too fast. Water didn’t like to be contained and now I’d set it free. 

“Percy?” Luke started. His eyes were wide. 

I focused harder. We needed to stop. We needed to stop before we crashed. Pulling the current back in was hard work; it was fighting against the very nature of water. 

“Percy!” Luke shouted. “We gotta bail!” He unfastened his seat belt and worked on mine too. 

Luke was right. We weren’t going to make it. I couldn’t slow us down enough fast enough. Okay. We didn’t have Grover to catch us but… I pushed Luke away from me. _“Maia!”_

The winged shoes lifted Luke into the air. He was much more skilled with them than Grover ever was. Luke was out of harm's way in a second. 

I dove off the boat and into the water. The second I touched the water, I formed a shield bubble around me. Sound was a little muted from within my bubble but I heard the crack of the boat as it crashed into the Gates of Love and felt the vibrations through the water. My bubble collided with the wreckage but didn’t break. I bobbed there in my bubble as the water roared around me. In a few minutes, the water had subsided and then slowed to a trickle. 

I released my bubble and fell onto the ground beside the wreckage of the boats. I leaned against the wreckage to catch my breath and looked up at the sky. Luke was still in the air. Well. That hadn’t gone exactly like last time but we still made it out okay. 

Luke landed beside me. His expression was furious. He yanked me up by my arm and pulled me into a hug so tight that my spine popped. “You stupid, idiot, brilliant, clever, absolute dumbass,” Luke snapped at me. 

I rested my head against his chest and felt his heart beating hard. “Sorry. It was all I could think of.” I let him hold me for a long few moments before pulling away. 

The cameras were still rolling. The Cupids had swiveled so that their lenses were facing us. The spotlights were bright in our faces. 

“Show’s over!” I yelled. “Thank you! Good night!” 

The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. Without the artificial light, I suddenly realized that the sun was beginning to sink. 

I climbed out of the pool with trembling limbs. Normally, it didn’t exhaust me to manipulate water but that was a lot of work. And for a second...just one second, I’d thought we would be doomed. I stumbled back towards the first pool, where the Cupids were. 

“Where are you going, Percy? We got the stupid shield,” Luke asked as he walked after me. His shoes had gone back to normal. 

I waved my hand vaguely. I wanted that net. Hepheastus had made it strong enough to catch a God. I ran back to the souvenir shop to grab their biggest backpack and then returned to the pool and studied the net. It was sunk into the concrete pretty good. I tried to snap the metal and only managed to shred my hands. Using water from the bottom of the pool, I healed my hands before Luke or Clovis could see. Then I tried to cut at the net with the water. Nope, no good. I pulled out Riptide. The celestial bronze went right through it. 

“Why do you want that?” Luke asked me. 

“Seems like it could come in handy,” I answered without looking up from the net. “Did you find your sword?” 

“Um, yeah. It’s broken.” 

“Good thing you brought another,” I replied. I kept cutting the net. Soon it lay in the bottom of the pool. For the second time, I climbed down into the pool. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. I knelt down and began to fold the net so that I could fit it into my backpack. There was no hiding how the metal cut my hands now. When it hurt too much, I healed them, but there was blood everywhere and the water at the bottom of the pool was beginning to look more red than clear. 

I could feel Luke’s anxiety rising as the water became redder. He paced along the rim of the pool and muttered under his breath. 

Clovis didn’t pace but his large dark eyes never left me. He looked just as worried as Luke did. Occasionally, I’d see them look at each other as though silently asking the other how crazy I was. 

Finally, Luke joined me at the bottom of the pool. “Percy, do you really need that net? We’ve got the shield. It’s getting dark. We should just go.” 

I folded another section. The metal sliced my finger to the bone. I healed it with the bloody water. Because the water was more blood than water, I was left with a pink scar. My third scar. The second was the Hellhound bite on my shoulder. “It traps Gods, Luke,” I responded.

Luke didn’t bother me after that. 

_“Maia.”_

By the time I managed to get the net folded and stuffed into my backpack, the sun was down and my arms were shredded up to my elbows. Pink scars and rusty scabs lined the length of them, remnants of wicked lacerations I wasn’t able to heal completely. Even my thighs had a few scratches. Of course the net didn’t shred the backpack fabric, which made me think that either Waterland had the best backpacks ever or the net only cut flesh. 

I was dizzy from blood loss and could barely pull myself out of the pool.

Clovis offered his hand and with much grunting, managed to get me over the side. “Can we please leave?” 

“Where’s Luke?” I asked. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for forever,” Clovis responded. He blinked a few times, each blink lasting longer than the one before it. “I need a nap,” he muttered. 

Luke rejoined us shortly. He came from the sky and touched down gracefully. In his arms were water bottles. Luke made a face at the sight of me. He twisted the cap off the first bottle and handed it to me. “Sorry it took so long. I had to go to the other side of the park and break into their cafeteria.” 

The first water bottle, I drank. The second, I used to heal my legs and wash off the blood. The third was for my arms and hands. Faint white scars criss-crossed my forearms and hands, shining when they caught the light. Apparently I wouldn’t be able to completely get rid of them. Maybe it had something to do with the metal used or maybe I’d just waited too long to heal myself. 

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go talk to Ares.” 

Ares was waiting for us in the diner parking lot. He sat atop his motorcycle. “Well well,” he said, “You didn’t get yourself killed.” His gaze flickered to my scars and one eyebrow quirked. 

“You knew it was a trap,” I said. My voice didn’t hold much heat. I was too tired to be angry. 

Ares gave me a wicked grin. “Bet that crippled blacksmith was surprised when he netted a couple of stupid kids. You looked good on TV.” 

I shoved his shield at him. “You’re an ass.” 

Ares grabbed the shield and spun it in the air like pizza dough. It changed form, melting into a bulletproof vest that he slung across his back. “See that truck over there?” He pointed to an eighteen-wheeler parked across the street from the diner. “That’s your ride. Take you straight to L.A., with one stop in Vegas.” 

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically, not looking forward to the ride. 

Ares snapped his fingers. The back door of the truck unlatched. “Free ride west, punk. And here’s a little something for doing the job.” He slung a blue nylon backpack off his handlebars and tossed it to me. 

“Thanks,” I deadpanned. 

“See you around, kid.” Ares revved his Harley, then roared off down the street. 

“I guess we better catch our ride,” Luke said. 

We ran across the street and climbed into the back of the big rig. It was pitch black but I could see that there were no animals in this truck; which I’ll admit actually surprised me. The truck was hot and a little humid thanks to the rain that had been following us. I uncapped Riptide. The blade cast a faint bronze light. Instead of animals, there were huge crates that had big name brands listed on them. I stared at the crates for a minute, wondering if it was just my eyes that were deceiving me or if the label really said Calvim Klain Collection. At least we wouldn’t be stuck with a bunch of animals this time. 

We walked to the back and made ourselves comfortable among some coats that were supposed to be designer but had weird, slightly wrong brand names. It wasn’t a moment too soon; the truck’s engine roared to life. The trailer started shaking. 

Clovis dropped his backpack and collapsed onto the coats with a sigh of relief. He was asleep before his head even hit. 

I was now carrying three backpacks and was glad to set them down too. 

Luke sat on the coats with his back to the wall. He hadn’t yet taken out the extra sword but he did keep the backpack close to him. 

I made myself as small as possible to curl up on Luke’s lap. Sleep would have been nice but I felt like I should use this time to talk to Luke. “Why are you a year-rounder?”

Luke’s legs tensed beneath me and for a second I thought he was going to throw me off his lap. “That’s not a happy story.” 

“Are they ever?” I asked, genuinely curious. 

Luke snorted. “No.” He placed one hand on my shoulder and drummed his fingers. “I always knew I was a son of Hermes. Dad was one of the few Gods who actually stuck around to help my mom raise me. At least for a year.”

I’d never heard of any God doing that. Even my own dad only checked in every now and again, and mostly through the spirits of nearby bodies of water. “What happened?”

“Mom and dad took me to Camp Half-Blood. Mom wanted to try hosting the Oracle. I have no idea why she thought she could do it. Her sight was clear but she wasn’t a virgin and...it didn’t go well. The Oracle drove mom insane and after that, Hermes left us.” There was so much rage in Luke’s voice, so much pain. In the glowing light of my sword, he looked defeated. “Mom would be fine...when I wasn’t with her. She’d be cooking or whatever, like a normal parent. But then I’d walk into the room and suddenly she was screaming at me.” 

“Why would she do that?” I whispered. 

“She saw my Fate.” Luke laughed but there was no humor in it. His fingers wandered to my hair. “Apparently it’s...not good.” His hand shook. “So when I was nine, I ran away. And here we are.” 

“You’re way braver than me,” I said softly. 

“Says the boy who sassed the God of war to his face,” Luke said. He sounded a little amused now that we weren’t in Ares presence anymore. 

“I couldn’t help it. I like getting under people’s skin.” 

“You are good at getting under people's skin,” Luke muttered. 

I sat up, still in his lap, and faced him. “Am I under your skin?” 

He looked back steadily. “Your crush is...cute,” he said in a way that made me think he meant _overwhelming._ “But you’re making a mistake trying to get into bed with me.” 

“He called you my boyfriend and you didn’t argue,” I tried. I was grasping at straws. 

“I’m not your boyfriend.” Luke said it so quickly that it stung. 

“Is it because I’m a boy?” 

“No. It isn’t because you’re a boy.” 

Well that was a relief. 

“Is it me? You just don’t like me?”

Luke slowly shook his head. “No.” 

Our faces were so close. I wanted to kiss him so badly. My skin felt feverish and I didn’t think it was because of how hot it was in the truck. I wanted my tongue in his mouth and his hands on my body. 

Luke must have seen the naked want on my face because he brought his hand to my mouth. “Don’t,” he warned me. 

With a whine, I parted my lips and let the tip of my tongue brush against his fingers. I wanted to suck them into my mouth but we were precariously balanced right now. That might be enough to push Luke away from me. 

He withdrew his hand, rested it on my hip and then my thigh and then at his side. “I’m a bitter old man and you’re -”

“Also a bitter old man?” 

“You aren’t an old man,” Luke replied. 

I was older than him.

“You’re too young,” Luke finished. I’m sure he meant it to sound stern but he wasn’t managing it. “Even if you weren’t, I’m not good for anyone.” His eyes told me that he believed that. 

My heart broke. Here was the reason that he’d taken me to Silena. Luke didn’t believe that he deserved to be loved. At that moment, I wanted to kill everyone. Everyone who had let Luke down, who had made him believe that he was worth nothing, who put us in these circumstances. 

My desperation was mirrored in Luke’s expression. “Why won’t you give up?” He asked me. 

“Why won’t you give in?” I countered. I brought my hands to cup his face. “Let me love you.”

Luke flinched. His long fingers curled around my wrists. “I can’t, Percy.” He sounded like he was going to break.

Should I apply more pressure and hope he broke in the way I wanted him to? Or should I back off? I leaned forward.

Luke’s grip on my wrists tightened. 

I rubbed my cheek against his, felt his scar and beard stubble against my skin. I burned hotter for the feeling of it. “How do I change your mind?

“Go back in time,” he said.

“Alright,” I whispered. “Done that. What next?” 

“I don’t know.” Luke manhandled me so that I was facing away from him. My back was to his chest and, as I was settled in his lap, I could feel his boner. “Do me a favor, Percy, and go to sleep.”

“I’m not going to have another Kronos dream, am I?” Not that I was worried about that. 

“How am I supposed to know?” Luke tensed again. “I just want to stop talking about us.”

I smiled. He said _‘us’._

At that moment, it began to rain. The raindrops hitting the metal roof sounded angry. With the onset of rain, the temperature in the truck began to drop. 

I felt Luke’s racing heartbeat slow and his breathing even out as he fell asleep. 

I was doing something wrong when it came to Luke. It was always easy before: all I had to do was exist and people wanted me. Annabeth, Nico, Reyna, Calypso, Rachel, even Apollo wanted a piece of me. Well, he did want me. I mean the evidence of that was poking me in the small of my back. But I didn't just want sex. I wanted a relationship.

I put my head back against Luke’s shoulder. It dawned on me all of a sudden that I was _sitting in his lap._ If Luke really wanted me out of his space, he was more than capable of physically removing me. Luke wouldn’t let me kiss him - yet - but he let me push every other boundary. Maybe I was making more progress than I’d thought. 

When the truck stopped for a break in Vegas, we slipped out. We weren’t quite in Vegas proper, more on the outskirts. 

Luke stole a pickup truck and we made our way to San Francisco. It was an older truck, one that had a bench seat in the front and two tiny fold out seats in the back. 

Clovis squeezed into the narrow space behind the bench seat. He laid on our backpacks. 

We listened to the weather reporter trying to justify the weird storm that was blowing in from the East Coast and making its way across the country. 

It was a few hours later when we came across a hitchhiker. He looked a couple years older than me but younger than Luke and he carried a messenger bag. 

I thought that we were going to drive by him but Luke pulled the car over. 

I scooted closer to Luke to make room. Why did I do that? 

The guy climbed in. “Thanks,” he said with a smile. His smile was sly and reminded me of someone. “It’s so rare for people to pick up travelers anymore.” 

“Where are you headed?” Luke asked. 

“Just a bit farther down the road,” the guy answered. He ran a hand through his wet, black curls. His blue eyes were the exact color and shape of Luke’s. 

No...it couldn’t be. 

The guy stretched his legs and I got a glimpse of his ankle; he had a wing tattoo. 

Very subtle. 

He caught me looking at him and winked. “Well aren’t you a cute one?” 

Oh my gods. 

My face turned scarlet. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the praise or because it was Hermes who was delivering it to me. “T-thanks.” The last time I’d had to deny a God my affections, I just closed the door in his face. But we were in a small truck and there was nowhere to go. 

Hermes pulled me in by the waist. In a split second, I was sitting on his lap. He had the same athletic build that Luke had. 

For a minute I was worried that he’d be getting handsy with me. 

Then slipped something into my pocket. His expression was serious but his eyes held worry. In a split second all that melted away into an easygoing smile. One hand splayed across my belly and the other was hot on my bare thigh. “What’s your name, sweetness?” 

“E-Eric,” I blurted out. 

Hermes hummed. His hand slid further up my thigh. “That’s a nice name.”

Luke stopped the truck in the middle of the road. 

I had to throw my arms onto the dash before my face collided with it. 

I’d seen Luke furious before but this was a fury that blackened his features and made his eyes hard like steel. Luke pulled me over to him. The only reason he was able to was because Hermes let him. “Get. Out.” He growled. 

Hermes raised both hands. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t realize that one was yours.” He got out of the truck. 

Luke just growled again. 

As soon as Hermes shut the truck door, Luke sped off. He still had one arm wrapped around my waist a few miles later. 

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I don’t know why I picked him up.” Luke frowned at the road. 

“I’m okay,” I told him. Though now I wondered how far Hermes would have taken that if Luke didn’t stop him. I pressed closer into Luke’s side. “No more hitchhikers, though.”

“Yeah. No more hitchhikers,” Luke agreed.

I curled up beside Luke and shoved my hands in my hoodie pocket. There was a letter inside. I was dying to read it but I figured that if Hermes went through the trouble of all that then he didn’t want Luke to know about it. 

It wasn’t until we came to a rest stop and Luke got out to stretch his legs, that I got a chance to read the letter. When I was done reading it, I shoved it into one of my backpacks. But I thought about it all the way to San Francisco. 

_Percy Jackson,_  
_So sorry for molesting you but the Gods currently have a bet going on Luke’s feelings towards you and I volunteered to test them. It was an excuse to come see you and give you this letter. Now on to business. I know what Luke did. He’s heading down a bad path. And I think that, for some reason, you know it too. Please help him. Bring him back from what he’s done. It isn’t too late. Save him.  
_Eternally,  
_Hermes ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've learned some things writing this fic. Mostly, I hate 2005 music compared to today's music. When I had to look up what was popular then, Percy's reaction was mine. 
> 
> But also, I really like writing Clovis. Since he had no personality and almost no appearances in canon, I get to do what I want with him. 
> 
> The scene with in the truck, with Percy sitting on Luke's lap...is like 1000x hotter from Luke's POV. And so is the strawberry field incident and...basically everything I didn't try to write in Rick's style. Oh hey, btw, I've started to write this from Luke's POV too (don't expect it anytime soon tho). Things get hotter between the boys. Luke is doing his best but as always, his best is shit. JK.


	6. I Share My Memories With A Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason finally shows up. Oh, and he's gone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can already hear the comments, "Robin, why did you call Jason a wolf?" The dude was literally raised by a wolf. He should have a lot of wolfish behaviors. There's some The Law Of The Jungle thrown in there too. 
> 
> Here are the translation notes beforehand. Please do not google it, because my Latin is atrocious even using two different websites. And Lupa is another word for whore.  
"I am your son, Lupa. I come for my brother."  
mater = mother

  
Luke drove us to the beach first, at my insistence. We didn’t pay to park and I got the impression that Luke would be happy to leave that truck behind us. 

All three of us were ladened down with backpacks. It was more than I had ever taken on any Quest but I refused to part with the cocaine, the net, or the backpack that Ares had given us. Luke didn’t seem keen on giving up the robes and canvas that had served us as bedding and Clovis wasn’t going to give up on his snacks. 

We walked down to the beach. It was a cloudy day, threatening rain, and the tide was high. The people who were there were mostly locals who didn’t mind the weather and homeless people who had nowhere else to go. 

Luke looked incredibly nervous to be in San Francisco and I wondered if that was because of the monsters or the Romans. When he was on the Princess Andromnia he had to have met the Romans but I wasn’t sure if he’d met them prior to that. 

I left my backpacks with Luke and Clovis on the beach. “I’ll be right back.” I kissed Luke’s cheek for good luck. I would need it for what I was going to do. 

“Where are you going?” Luke asked.

I started towards the water and thought _‘dry’_ so that it didn’t touch me. The ocean was warmer than the one on the East Coast though it was just as polluted. I walked up to my waist, my chest, and then was completely beneath the surf. Breathing beneath the water was second nature to me. I could sense where everything was; sand-dollar colonies, the warm and cold currents, even the five-foot-long mako shark that came to rub against my leg like a dog. 

I gripped the shark’s dorsal fin and we shot off into the depths. It deposited me on the very edge of the sandbank, right before the ocean proper. Tartarus and Kronos never seduced me but this void in the ocean did. A part of me knew that I could let myself sink down to the bottom, that I could rest there among the Old Gods and let the currents take my memories away. They could take away my memories of Luke, of my mom, of Grover. I would never have to worry about anything ever again. The upcoming wars wouldn’t touch me. Well, for a while anyway. Water held memory and eventually it would make its way back to me. But not for hundreds of years, not in my lifetime. 

It was tempting to take the easy way out. But I’ve never taken the easy way out for anything before this and I wasn’t going to start now. 

Something glimmered in the darkness, growing bigger and brighter as it rose towards me. A woman’s voice, like my mother’s, called: “Percy Jackson.” As she got closer, her shape became clearer. She had flowing black hair, a dress made of green silk. Attached to the dress was a small pouch decorated with shells. 

Without moving, I willed the current to shift around her. It made her dress shift too. The woman dismounted from the stallion-sized seahorse. The seahorse and the mako shark whisked off and started playing something that looked like tag. “You’ve gone far, Percy Jackson. Well done.” 

I dipped my head to show respect but I wasn’t about to bow this time. “You’re a Nereid. A spirit of the sea.” 

“Yes,” the Nereid agreed. She reached into her pouch. “I come with a warning and a gift.” She held out her hand and three white pearls flashed in her palm. 

“What are those?” I asked to distract her. While she explained, I stole another pearl from the pouch. 

She didn’t seem to notice, just followed the script as she was supposed to. After finishing her warning and giving me the three pearls in her hand, she summoned her seahorse and rode toward the void. She became a speck of glowing green and then she was gone. 

I kicked upwards towards the surface. When I reached the beach, I was completely dry. There were four pearls tucked safely in my pocket. 

Luke and Clovis were sitting in the sand with ice cream cones. “Where’d you go?” Luke asked. His ice cream was strawberry. 

It wasn’t blue but I sat down beside them and opened my mouth for a bite. 

Luke tipped the cone in my direction with a roll of his eyes. “Brat,” he chided. 

After I got my ice cream, I answered him. “A Nereid gave me these to help us get out of the Underworld.” 

Luke and Clovis both shivered. “I don’t want to go to the Underworld,” Clovis said. 

Luke got two licks of his ice cream cone in before he tipped it back towards me. 

“That’s good, because I wasn’t planning on taking you.” I only got one lick in before Luke pulled it back. “You should have gotten blue.” 

“I didn’t buy it for you,” Luke said. 

“What do you mean you aren’t taking me? What are you going to do with me?” Clovis asked. He almost sounded offended that I wasn’t going to take him with us. 

I scooted closer to Luke to steal more ice cream. “Before we go to the D.O.A., we need to pick up a package and I need you, Clovis, to deliver it to Camp Half-Blood.” 

“Shouldn’t messenger boy do that?” Clovis asked. “Not that I want to go to the Underworld. But he’s the son of Hermes.”

I met Luke’s eyes. “I want him to come with me. He’s more useful by my side.” 

Luke looked at me like I was a puzzle to figure out. It was a look he gave me often. “It isn’t the cocaine you smuggled in your backpack is it?” 

“You went through my stuff.”

Luke shrugged. 

I tried to be mad but as long as the net was in one piece, it didn’t matter if Luke snooped. All of my secrets were in my head. 

The lady with the chimera caught up to us while we finished our ice cream. She looked a little tired, as though she’d been following us on foot. “You’ve been giving us problems, Perseus Jackson.”

“Better get used to it!” I snapped back. I looked at Luke. “You wanna tag team this one?” 

Luke looked at the lady and her chihuahua. “Is that a chimera?” 

When I looked at the fat lady and her pet, I only saw the chihuahua unless I looked really hard. Luke’s sight must have been as clear as his mother’s. 

“Yes, dear,” the fat lady agreed. “Finally someone can see that my son isn’t a chihuahua.” 

The chihuahua barked and with every bark it grew larger and larger until it was the size of a lion. It had the head of a lion with a blood-caked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind. The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized tag read: CHIMERA - RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS - IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS - EXT. 954. 

The fat lady made a hissing noise like laughter. “Be honored, Percy Jackson. Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna.” 

I uncapped Riptide. “Isn’t that a kind of anteater?” 

Luke pulled Backbiter from the scabbard. 

Echidna recoiled from Luke’s blade. The chimera snarled and looked back at her uncertainly. “There is poison in your heart,” Echidna rasped. “Better you die now, faithless ones.” 

I didn’t know which one of us she was talking about but I suspected that it was both of us. Luke took the left, I took the right. 

The chimera chose to go after Luke, opening its mouth and shooting a column of flame straight at him. 

Luke dodged but his shirt was singed. _“Maia!” _

I took that opportunity to stab Riptide into the chimera’s side. 

The snake head shot towards me. 

I scrambled out of the way. 

The snake head suddenly landed in the sand at my feet. It snapped its teeth but couldn’t go anywhere without a body.

Luke had cut the head off. He floated in the air above the chimera, Backbiter aimed downwards. Luke’s aim was true; he stabbed through the shoulder blades and pierced the chimera’s heart. 

“No!” Echidna screamed. Her face turned green with fury. 

The chimera dissolved into golden sand, blown away by the sea breeze. 

“You will regret this, heroes.” Echidna vanished, her angry wail still echoing on the empty beach. 

Luke landed beside me and held out a hand. He hauled me to my feet. “Well that was exciting. You ready to move on?” 

I grinned and nodded. “That was so cool! I’ve never seen anyone slay a chimera before.” Not even I’d been able to do it. Last time I’d encountered them, I’d just plunged to what I thought was going to be my death into the Mississippi. 

Luke smiled back at me and for a second the bitterness in his eyes lifted. “C’mon, kid. Let’s get on with the next side quest.”

We got our stuff and Clovis, then Luke stole another car out of a hotel parking garage. We were on our way to the Wolf House, Jason Grace, and my next challenge. 

The Wolf House was a magnificent cabin in the forest. It was built of stone and log, with great pillars and multiple levels. Wolves and demigods lounged and spared in the front yard. They stopped when they saw me. Hackles rose. Demigods reached for their weapons. 

I stood my ground with my head held high and met the gaze of every one of Lupa’s children. They didn’t scare me, though they were a formidable pack. Nothing could shake the feeling that I belonged here, that I was one of them. It was my right to stand before them. 

Lupa came in silence, her paws making no noise on the ground despite being seven feet tall. Her fur was a chocolatey-red and her eyes as silver as mist. 

I bowed to her, but not as a subordinate. I bowed as an equal. I did not show my throat, nor my belly. Submitting wasn’t what I was here to do. When I lifted my head, it was to look Lupa directly in the face. _“Venio tuum filium, Lupa. Venio enim frater.”_

Lupa’s nostrils flared as she scented me. Her ears flicked back. _“Who are you? A son of the Sea God. Not a son of mine.”_

Lupa’s rejection of me stung more than I thought it would. She was mother, trainer, and protector. I only stayed with her for two months but I loved her. “My pack lay, _mater_, so that leaders may speak.”

I had left Clovis and Luke at the edge of Lupa’s territory and pointed out the line that they weren’t to cross. Being this close to the Romans made both of them nervous and I didn’t want them to start a fight they weren’t prepared to finish. And Luke was carrying Backbiter on his hip now that he’d lost the other sword. He never removed it from the scabbard but I knew what it was and I knew that Lupa wouldn’t want the weapon on her territory. 

_“Then speak, pup,”_ Lupa said. _“Who is the one you call your brother?”_

“I’m here for an audience with Jason Grace,” I said. 

Jason was Lupa’s third favorite son, after the first two she’d raised. I didn’t take it personally, though. She’d raised him since he was two years old. 

Lupa regarded me with curiosity. She clearly didn’t know what to make of me. _“You must prove yourself worthy to speak to my son,”_ Lupa said finally. 

I’d expected that. 

The only warning I got that Lupa was about to attack, was her crouching to pounce. She sprang at me. 

I dodged, rolling in the dirt. I had no shield, only Riptide to protect me and the sword was in my pocket. 

Lupa’s teeth snapped close to my ear. Her breath smelled like raw meat.

I punched her in the face. It didn’t do too much except to buy me a few seconds to get out of her way. Swinging my sword around was easy enough but I still hadn’t built up the muscle needed to really pack a good punch. 

Lupa lowered her head and charged right at me, knocking me back six feet. 

I rolled across the yard and shook off the dizziness. My lip curled at her, teeth bared in a challenge. I pulled Riptide from my pocket and uncapped it, scrambling back to my feet. 

Lupa caught me across the chest with her claws.

It felt like fire ripping across my skin and I stumbled backwards, knocked onto my ass from the force of her blow. Blood flowed down my chest in rivers. 

Lupa leapt at me, jaws open wide. 

I rolled out of the way and brought Riptide up. The sword grazed Lupa’s ribs and her golden blood speckled the blade. 

Lupa had once been a mortal wolf. She knew the pain of tooth and claw. She did not howl as Ares had when I cut him. Her silver mist eyes turned icy, her black lips drew up over her pearly white teeth. Ichor - the divine blood of the Gods - flowed from the wound on her side. 

We stared each other down. 

Then Lupa flicked her ears. Her snarl faded. _“I will send for your brother, pup of mine.”_ Lupa turned her back on me and trotted back up the steps of the Wolf House. 

Her wolves and demigod pups both followed her into the temple but not before giving me appraising looks. No one had expected me to draw blood.

Despite Lupa’s acceptance of me as her son, I was left alone in the yard to lick my wounds by myself. I got to my feet and capped Riptide. My head spun as I began the walk back to the edge of Lupa’s territory. I couldn’t make myself look down but I could see red at the bottom of my vision. 

Our temporary camp was set up on the other side of a stream that marked the border of Lupa’s territory. The sun was low in the sky by the time I arrived, streaking the sun with red that matched the lines on my chest. Luke and Clovis had a fire going and Clovis was roasting a twinkie over it. 

Luke spotted me first when I noisily staggered into the stream. He was on his feet in a second, bounding over to me with the grace of a deer in the forest. “Percy!” 

I was happy to let him put an arm around my waist. The water healed the worst of my cuts, causing them to scab over. But I wouldn’t let it heal me completely. I wanted a reminder of Lupa and if I had to wear it on my skin then so be it. “I’m okay,” I mumbled.

“Did they attack you?” Luke asked as he sat me down by the fire. He pulled out his switchblade. With a flick of his wrist, he opened it, and started cutting away my shirt. 

“Had to pass a test,” I answered. I wanted to lay down and take a nap but Luke kept forcing me to sit up. 

“How did it go?” Clovis asked. He stuffed the toasted twinkie into his mouth. 

“Jason will be here...sometime,” I answered. 

Luke twisted the cap on one of the Waterland water bottles he had left and poured some onto a strip of fabric. He dabbed at the blood that soaked all the way down to my shorts. “_Di immortales_, Percy, you trying to go for some kind of record with the scars on this Quest?” 

I winced as he got too close to one of the tender scabs. “Hey,” I muttered lowly, “You’re responsible for one of these.” 

Luke went still. He decidedly didn’t meet my eyes. The next pass at my chest was more careful. 

“And you thought the dragon was bad,” Clovis observed. He spitted another twinkie over the fire. His bovine features gave him the appearance of stupidity but he watched us with a sharp, observant gaze. 

“I’d rather fight Lupa again than take on Landon,” I said. Now that the blood was washed clean, Luke draped the Medusa robe over me. It was beginning to smell more like me than her, for which I was grateful. I couldn’t lift my arms over my head without reopening the scabs so I couldn’t put on the hoodie I’d left in my backpack. 

“You fought the Goddess?” Luke asked, impressed. He tossed the bloody scrap of fabric into the fire. 

“I had to prove myself. She wouldn’t let me see Jason otherwise.” Now that Luke was done with me, I gingerly lay down on my side. It was uncomfortable and the fire made my wounds feel like they were burning again. 

“We have some ambrosia and nectar,” Luke offered me. 

I shook my head. I wanted to let it scar. “Come here,” I begged and tried not to sound too whiny while doing it. 

I must have looked pretty pathetic because Luke slotted himself against my back without argument. He hesitantly set one hand on my hip and relaxed in increments when he saw that I wasn’t going to bite. 

“Sing something for me, Luke,” I muttered. 

Luke hesitated, then started to sing, “My boy, my boy, don’t lie to me / tell me where did you sleep last night / in the waves, in the waves / where the sun don’t ever shine / I would shiver the whole night through.” 

I recognized the song as one from Nirvana but Luke had changed the lyrics a little. If I wasn’t so tired, I would have smiled. My eyelids slid closed.

“My boy, my boy, where will you go? / I’m going where the cold wind blows / in the waves, in the waves / where the sun don’t ever shine / I would shiver the whole night through.” 

By the time Luke finished the verse, I was asleep. 

The smell of ozone woke me from my sleep. I struggled into a sitting position, reached for Riptide but couldn’t get the pen out of my pocket fast enough. Luke was still stretched out behind me, arm slung over my waist. I pulled Backbiter from its scabbard. 

Overhead, thunder suddenly rumbled. I could feel the uncertainty in the sky, in the very air. 

“Mother said you were dangerous,” Jason’s voice came from a distance. “What is that sword?” No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see him. It wasn’t the Roman way to hide but Jason was more wolf than Roman. Lone wolves didn’t invite danger. 

Even though I couldn’t see him, I was pretty sure he was on the other side of the stream. He’d probably followed my blood trail. “Something terrible,” I answered, looking at the sword in my hand. Even now, I could feel the metals fighting each other and smell the blood that the sword had shed. 

“Are you here to challenge us, _graecus_?” Jason’s voice carried a hard edge to it. Something sparked in the woods. He was so much like Thalia. 

“No. I’m only here to talk.” 

“Mother called you my brother. But you’re a _graecus._” 

“Yes.”

“I don’t know you.” 

“Not yet,” I agreed. I twisted around to sheath Backbiter and my scabs opened up. Blood dribbled down my chest. “Sleep with my pack.” 

Jason melted out of the undergrowth like a phantom. In that second, he looked like a Hunter of Artemis, if she accepted boys. His icy blue eyes sparked with electricity and his short blond hair was fluffed up as though he’d received a huge shock. Jason moved quietly across the stream and edged closer to our camp. Suddenly, his jaws parted in a yawn. He looked confused by it. His eyes flickered from Luke to Clovis. 

“Sleep with my pack,” I encouraged him. Being around Clovis built up a small immunity to his sleep magic but even I couldn’t resist for more than a short stretch of time. “When you wake, you’ll know everything.” 

Jason was crawling by the time he made it to our fire. He fell unconscious, barely missing the hot ash in the fire pit. 

I settled down again and closed my eyes to dream. 

I was no match for Clovis in his realm. The waves I kept around my memories only worked because he allowed them to. Which meant that Clovis had been sneaking peeks. I knew that because every time he did, I’d dream about whatever he was looking at. However, he didn’t look at everything - not even close - and so there was still a lot left for him to see. 

Jason and Clovis stood with me in the dreamscape. Jason’s form kept flickering; a boy, a wolf, a bolt of lightning. He looked at Clovis and said, “He’s a son of Somnus.” His gaze found me. “Is this an ambush?” The wolf’s hackles raised, the lightning expanded, the boy’s eyes flashed. 

“Oh, are we going to finally get to see what you’ve been keeping hidden, Percy?” Clovis asked. He didn’t take his eyes off Jason, seemingly fascinated by him. 

“Yes. You can look but on the condition that you show Jason as well. Everything.” 

“Everything?” Clovis repeated. A strange smile crossed his face. 

“Everything,” I said firmly. 

Clovis was thorough when it came to drawing up my memories. Even the memories that I didn’t want him to pull up, the embarrassing ones, were drawn to the surface and displayed. My memories came like the waves on sand, one right after another, starting with the snake that crawled into my crib when I was a baby. We moved through my first life, childhood into teenage years into adulthood. Enemies slain, friends murdered, war after war. I almost expected it to end at the meeting with Chronos but then it started on the bus again until we got to the moment Jason showed up at our camp.

The memories ended and we stood on a cliffside, the water miles below us and the sky a gray mass above us. 

There were tears running down Jason’s cheeks. He was a boy again, though he was fuzzy around the edges as though he couldn’t hold the form long. As he turned to face me, Jason was a wolf again. This is a suicide quest.” His voice came directly into my mind, the way Lupa’s did when she spoke. 

“You’re going to die anyway,” I pointed out. It wasn’t to be cruel. It was just a fact. 

_“This is so beyond what you were told to do,”_ Jason insisted. 

It didn’t encourage me that this was where Jason’s mind went first. His doubt made me doubt myself. Was I doing the right thing? “My goals are a little broader than you-know-who. He just wanted to stop us before we worked our way to the primordials.” 

“You’re insane, Percy,” Jason announced. He glanced at Clovis. “Can you bring up Luke again? A recent image.” 

An image of Luke came up. The perspective was me looking up at him. We were in the Hermes Cabin several weeks ago. In the early morning light, Luke’s scar looked soft and his expression was tender, if a little confused. 

Looking at it filled me with a happy glow. 

“He’s dangerous, Percy. Don’t forget that he was nice to you before and then he had no problem trying to kill you. Multiple times.” Jason frowned at the image. 

The happy glow diminished some. “I know that he’s dangerous. But he wasn’t as sweet on me then as he is now. And he hasn’t tried to kill me since the Hellhound.” It sounded weak even to my own ears. 

Jason shook his head. _“What are you going to do once he decides he doesn’t care about your crush anymore?”_

I didn’t answer. 

Clovis groaned. 

We both looked at him. 

Clovis sat with his knees drawn up, one arm around his knees and the other over his head. He groaned again, the low sound of an animal in pain. 

“Clovis, you okay?” I asked. 

“Ignorance is indeed bliss. I want to go back to bliss.” Clovis groaned pathetically. He lifted his head. His eyes were rimmed red, making him look ill. He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t involved then but you’ve dragged me into it now and I know you’ll want to use me again. I heard your oath, Percy. _Unnecessary_ deaths. To be perfectly honest, you scare me. You’re a walking nightmare, the terror of mortals and immortals alike. They cower in your wake, they tremble at the sound of your name. I swear my loyalty to you, Percy Jackson, on the River Styx. May it save my soul.” 

Clovis dropped his head again. 

Jason and I both stared at Clovis like he’d grown another head...which he hadn’t. Then Jason turned to me. “You wear rose colored glasses when it comes to Luke and it’s going to get people killed. No matter how powerful you are, and I’ll admit that you are very powerful, love will give you blinders.” 

“I might have caught him early enough this time. Look at him, Jason. He’s still just as vulnerable now as he was two years ago when Kronos snatched him up. He took me to Silena to see if I was cursed because he doesn’t think anyone can love him.” 

“Who just walks up to a stranger and kisses them?” Jason countered. 

“Jason -”

“Percy, he’s dangerous. I don’t think you should even try to save him based on what I saw. But...you see something in him that I don’t. I can admit that, even if I don’t like it.” He closed his eyes and an image came up of our temporary camp, of Luke curled protectively around me while we slept. “If this was all I saw, I would believe in your ability to change him for the better. But now that I’ve seen the rest…” 

“He hasn’t _done_ any of that, Jason. That’s in the past.” I suddenly understood why Ares and Aphrodite wanted mirrors around. Yes, they were vain. But if they were, so was I. I couldn’t help but drink in the image of me and Luke together by the smoldering fire. “Luke is angry but he isn’t wrong. We need a change. Will you help me?” 

Jason ran his hands down his face. “I understand where you’re coming from. Both of you. Even if I don’t like it. But Percy, Lupa is my mother. A truer mother than any I’ve had.”

My heart ached. I touched the claw marks on my chest, there even in dreams. “I know. I’ll do it if you can’t.”

“Why didn’t you do it tonight?” 

“I couldn’t,” I admitted. 

“Well you’re off to a great start,” Jason snapped. His form shifted and he was lightning, chaotic and bright. _“I’m on your side, Percy. On the River Styx, I swear my loyalty to you and your cause.”_

Relief flooded through me. “Great. Now here’s the plan.” 

I sat up and popped my spine, which was the most I could stretch. Medusa's robe fell around my waist but it was a warm night and one of the few times without rain. 

The first thing Jason asked me was, “Are you wearing pants?”

Luke sat up but stayed curled around me, ribs pressed into my back. It was both possessive and protective. 

“Shorts,” I said and a blush rose to my cheeks. 

Luke unbuttoned his shirt and then coaxed me into it. Since I didn’t have to lift my arms over my head, it was a little easier than trying to get into my hoodie. He buttoned it up for me.

“I can do that,” I muttered. 

Luke just swatted my hands away and buttoned the shirt up to the second one from the top. 

“Jason, this is Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, head of Cabin Eleven,” I introduced the two of them. “And that’s Clovis, son of Hypnos.” 

Clovis was bundled in his sleeping bag, looking like a pale caterpillar. His dark eyes flitted between the three of us. 

Luke and Jason studied each other warily. There was bound to be some tension. As long as they didn’t start fighting, I would consider this a good first meeting. Luke broke the silence first. “So you’re Jason Grace, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Jason answered. He flipped his coin. The coin was a sword in disguise. It meant he was nervous. 

“I know your sister, Thalia. Knew her.” Luke brushed his cheek against my hair. “She...she was the bravest person I’ve ever known.”

I nuzzled Luke but otherwise kept out of it, waiting to see how this would play out.

Jason looked uncomfortable. “I never knew Thalia. Jupiter took me from my mother when I was two and gave me to Lupa to raise.” 

I heard Luke’s teeth grinding. He was angry. “I’m sorry. I wish you could have met her.” 

“You were friends?” Jason asked cautiously. 

“We were homeless together for a few years.” 

Silence fell after that, awkward and tense. 

Luke broke it after a few minutes. “Percy, you’re bleeding again. How did you manage to reopen your wounds in your sleep?” Luke carefully mopped up the blood with another piece of cloth. 

Jason’s warning echoed in my head but it was so easy to separate the Luke of now and the Luke of then. “That’s raw talent right there,” I said. 

When the blood was cleaned up, Luke skimmed his fingers over the scars on my forearms. “That talent is going to get you killed.” 

“I’ve had 274 near death experiences. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” I turned my head to kiss his jaw. That was the third kiss I’d managed to steal. 

To my surprise, Luke accepted my affections without his usual reservations. It may have had something to do with Jason’s presence. “That’s less reassuring than you think, Percy.” 

“Don’t you guys carry nectar and ambrosia with you on Quests?” Jason asked, indicating to my scarred forearms. 

My blush was back. “We forgot about it,” I admitted. I shifted my arms and the scars caught the firelight. “They don’t hurt.”

“They will when you get older,” Luke assured me. Did his scar still hurt? 

“Bold of you to assume Percy will live that long,” Jason said under his breath.

Behind me, Luke tensed again. 

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m a danger magnet.”

Jason looked up at the sky, then stood. “I need to get going before mater sends a patrol.” 

I got to my feet and hugged him. “I’ll send the boy with news as soon as he can travel,” I promised. 

Jason didn’t scoop me into one of his bear hugs, but he did gently wrap his arms around me. “Maybe you were right about him,” Jason murmured in my ear. “You two are disgustingly cute.” 

I beamed at him as I stepped back. 

Jason waved at Clovis and Luke then took off into the shadows. He disappeared from sight in seconds. 

Now that I had Jason on my side, some of the weight was gone. He would make an exceptional ally. I returned to Luke and sat down facing him. Like this, we were the same height. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Taking care of me.” 

Luke kissed my cheek. It was just a quick peck but it was the first time he’d ever initiated anything like that. His cheeks were pink and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Let’s get some rest while we can. I’ve got the feeling tomorrow is going to be exciting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story should really be called How Many Scars Can I Give Percy?
> 
> The song that Luke sings ([Where Did You Sleep Last Night/In The Pines](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOJaCT5uTE)) is technically a Nirvana song...but I was listening to the Sleigh Bells version while writing it. I just changed the lyrics a little bit.


	7. I Almost Drown The Di Angelo Siblings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suspend your disbelief. I know that Kronos doesn't possess Luke until _after_ the Styx but I wrote this before I'd caught up with my rereading. I am now officially caught up on Percy Jackson & The Olympians. I've read Luke's diary. And I've finally listened to The Lightning Thief Musical.

The drive was relatively short. Only six hours between San Francisco and L.A. It was the middle of the week, June first, so the traffic wasn’t too bad. 

Clovis snored in the backseat, happy to finally be asleep. 

“So you don’t need him anymore?” Luke asked. His stubble had grown in even more and he wore my hoodie, which was a little too small on him. We all could have used a shower and a bed. 

“Not for this Quest.” I slouched in my seat and put my feet up on the dash. “It’s fucked what the Gods did to Jason.” 

Luke gripped the steering wheel tightly. “That’s what the Gods are like.” His voice was dark and low with anger. He glared at the road.

“Assholes?” I asked.

Luke nodded. “They don’t care about us.” 

I thought about Hermes, after Luke’s death and the way he’d kissed Luke’s forehead. The blessing he’d given his dead son. How he’d admitted to being furious with Annabeth and laying the blame on her, on tasking me with the job of saving Luke’s eternal soul. A hot, nasty flush of anger rose in my gut like lava. Even when they did take responsibility, there was always shit before that. “Luke? You know that hitchhiker we picked up?” 

Luke glanced at me. “What about him?

“Did...did you recognize him?” I asked. 

Luke hesitated.

“His eyes were gold.”

“They weren’t gold.”

“They were gold for a second,” I countered. “I saw them flash gold.” 

Luke shook his head but even as he did, the needle on the speedometer climbed. Our speed gave away his tension. “So you think he was a God?” 

I bit my lip and looked out the window. “You promise you won’t be mad at me?”

“Promise,” Luke said. 

“He had a wing tattoo. On his ankle,” I said. 

We were going ninety miles per hour. Luke didn’t say anything. 

I continued, “And his eyes were just like yours.” 

“You’re saying my dad hitched a ride with us to...molest you?” Luke’s voice was steel. We hit ninety-five.

I drew my legs up to my chest and squeezed myself against the passenger door. “I don’t know if it was him,” I said quietly. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Luke announced. His gaze flitted to me then back at the road. The speedometer announced we were going one hundred miles per hour. Suddenly the numbers began to drop. We slowed, pulled over to the shoulder, and stopped. Luke flipped the hazard lights on then turned fully towards me. “I’m not mad at you. So don’t give me that face.” Luke spread his arms. 

I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled over the gear stick to him. The fact that he was now inviting me into his space was a good thing; I was making some progress with him. I straddled him, one knee on either side of him and the steering wheel digging into my back.

Luke fumbled for a moment then pushed the button so that the seat slid backwards. “Stop it,” he muttered and smoothed both thumbs over my furrowed brow. “If you think it was my dad, then it probably was.” He ran his knuckles down the sides of my face, along my jaw. 

My eyes slid closed. Luke had given me a good opening to convince him to join my side yet I was hesitant to take it. “You kicked him out of the truck for me.” 

“I should have ran him through with...my sword.” Luke’s knuckles slid across my collarbones, hands coming together in the center of my chest. He was very careful to avoid the seat belt scar. 

I wanted him to touch it with every fiber of my being. “Next time,” I muttered, “you can just run him over with the car.” I looked at Luke through my lashes.

Luke smiled at me, tender and fond. His blue eyes glittered with mischief as he thought about the scenario I put before him. “I’ll install a celestial bronze bumper, just for that.” 

I laughed but it came out a little breathy. Luke’s hands on me sparked my nerves. At that moment, I wanted him to devour me in whatever way I could get. I guided one of his hands to splay flat across my stomach the way Hermes’ hand had, and the other I placed on my thigh, though it was much higher up than Hermes had gotten. 

Luke went still. “You think I’m going to change my mind in two days?”

“Gods, I hope so,” I admitted. That hot, feverish feeling overtook me again. I wanted to kiss Luke. I wanted him to push me hotter, to burn me up. I pulled away from him, put a little distance between us without getting up from his lap. It was hard to meet his gaze so I turned my face towards the window and watched the traffic. 

We sat there, on the side of the road with tension building between us, not looking at each other. 

“What do you want from me, kid?” Luke begged.

I forced myself to meet his gaze. “Everything,” I whispered. “I want you to denounce Kronos and help me put the Gods in their place. If you want to be used so badly, then let me be the one to use you. Be my scourge, my sword.” I touched his scarred cheek. “And while you do that, let me love you. You deserve love and I want to give it to you.” 

Luke’s eyes widened with surprise. He looked like he wanted to shove me off of him but there was nowhere for me to go. Instead, he caught my hand and squeezed so hard the bones shifted. “How did you know?”

I met his snarl with one of my own. “I know everything about you, Luke. Your past, your present, your future.” 

Luke’s grip on my hand tightened. 

“Go ahead and break my hand, Luke, but I’ll keep my secrets until you denounce Kronos. Because I’m not just coming for the Gods, I’m coming for him too.” I shook my arms, to accentuate my scars. “What do you think I’ve been doing? Why do you think I would go through all this trouble, get all these scars? I’m going to stop Kronos at his every turn. I’ll take his army, I’ll take his magical items, I’ll take his host. He will _never_ be stronger or smarter than me because I know his every move and I’m so far ahead of him that I’ve already planned for the war _after_ this one.” 

Luke’s anger melted into a look of pure terror. I could only imagine the ruckus Kronos was causing in his head. His grip on me loosened but I got the impression that wasn’t intentional. “H-how?” 

I shook my head, a coy smile playing on my lips. As if I would tell him. “You have until the summer solstice to make your decision, Luke. After that, well, I’m going to have to leave you to your fate.” I leaned forward, so close that our noses nearly touched. “If I have to kill you to save you, then I will.” 

Luke’s blue eyes flashed gold. His hand shot up and wrapped hard around my throat. His features twisted into an enraged snarl. It was Kronos’ rasp that came from Luke’s mouth. “You think you’re more powerful than me, _boy?_ I ate your father and I’ll eat you too, impudent flea.” 

I couldn’t say anything, I could barely even breathe. Luke’s hands were a vice around my throat. Even though I was on the edge of passing out, I wasn’t going to let Kronos bait me into hurting Luke. 

“Luke has reached the limits of his usefulness,” Kronos continued with a sneer. “Let’s level the playing field a bit. You can have this weak, pathetic boy you want so badly.” Luke’s hand squeezed so tightly that the veins in his arm stood out. “Even now, he pleads with me to spare your life, little flea. He always has needed to be coaxed and threatened into behaving. Luke is too soft, too disobedient to use even as a body to burn through.” 

My vision was going black. I could barely make out the golden eyes or the sneer of disgust on Luke’s face. 

“Worthless,” Kronos said through Luke’s mouth. “Such a disappointment.” 

I passed out before Kronos could say any more. 

The light had changed from yellow morning to late afternoon sunlight. I was reclined at a weird angle, head lolling uncomfortably against the seat belt. My neck hurt, inside and out. Every breath was painful and the deeper I tried to breathe, the more it hurt. I fumbled with the seat adjustments and sat up too quickly. 

“What in Hades’ Underworld happened to you?” Clovis asked me. He was in the back seat still, sitting in the spot behind the driver's seat. “You were screaming in your dreams. It was so annoying that I woke up and found you like this.” 

I flexed my throat but couldn’t make any noise. Instead I gestured to the empty driver's seat. 

“Luke happened to you or you want to know where he is?” Clovis asked. He looked past me. “Either way, he’s out there. We’ve been here for a few hours. Jason was right about him, wasn’t he?” 

I shook my head. It made my neck hurt worse. My hands trembled as I tried to open my door. Most people slide out of cars as smooth as butter but what I did could be classified as falling more than anything. My previous run-ins with asphyxiation had never been this bad; not even monsters ever got me this bad. I staggered towards Luke.

Luke sat on a picnic table overlooking the ocean. The arm he used to strangle me hung limply between his legs. His other hand massaged it. 

I’m not sure how quiet I was actually being but I managed to startle Luke when I sat next to him. 

Luke immediately tried to jump away but I threw my arms around him so all he could manage was an awkward slide off the table. “No,” he said. His voice was watery and his eyes were rimmed red. “No, I’m not. Don’t. Let me go.” 

I shook my head and stubbornly held on. 

“Percy, I told you to stay away from me. I told you that I was a mistake. You need to let go.” Luke tried to pry my arms from around him but when he touched my skin, he let go of me as though I burned him. 

I couldn’t communicate with him because my throat was too hurt. So I just held onto his middle to keep him from going anywhere. If he wanted to leave, he’d have to either drag me along with him or force me off of him. 

Luke struggled a bit more before giving in. His arms hung limply at his sides. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. “You should give up on me. I could have killed you.”

I shifted my weight so that I could hold tighter to him with one arm and then reached my hand towards his face. His cheeks were damp from crying. I traced my fingertips along his scar, then along the sharp line of his jaw. 

Luke shook his head. “How do you expect to beat him? He’s too powerful even without a body.” 

Luke’s eyes were still closed so I tapped on his temple and then his chest: brains, heart. The usual hero things. I wasn’t sure how to convey immense good luck but I think Luke already knew that part. 

I was so absorbed in Luke that I didn’t notice Clovis jogging over to us. He had a canteen in his hand. “You idiots are so dense. Drink this,” he said and thrust it at me. 

I took a sip. It was full of nectar. The taste was like my mom’s homemade blue chocolate chip cookies. I sipped a little more as the nectar spread warmth throughout me. Mortals would burn from the inside out from one sip but even demigods could overdose. My throat hurt a little less. “Thanks,” I rasped. My voice still sounded awful. 

“We need to get going,” Clovis said. “We’re on a schedule. If you two could save the angst for later, that’d be great.” 

I took Luke’s hand in mine. It was cold and clammy. “Okay. Let’s go.” 

“Percy -“ Luke tried to protest. 

“You aren’t getting out of this so easily,” I threatened. “I don’t wanna drive so you have to.” 

Luke reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged back to the car. “Where in L.A. are we going?”

“The Lotus Hotel and Casino,” I rasped. I laid back in my seat and closed my eyes. 

“Sounds like my kind of place,” Clovis said from the back seat. 

Luke, Clovis, and I stood outside the Lotus Hotel and Casino and looked up at the massive building. The front entrance was decorated with a giant neon lotus flower. The doorman kept beckoning us closer. 

“Finally, a real bed to sleep in,” Clovis said and made for the entrance. 

I pulled him back by the collar of his shirt. “Not so fast, Clovis. If Luke and I go in there, we’ll never come out again.” 

Clovis sighed. 

I held Clovis by the collar and slipped my free hand into Luke’s. “Stay close to me,” I warned.

Luke’s hand hung limply in mine. “What are you going to do?” He was wary of me and of himself. It felt like taking one step forward and five steps backwards.

I closed my eyes and became one with the plumbing. Water was a beautifully destructive force and it hated to be contained. Three minutes later, every pipe in the building exploded. Water hit the walls so hard that the hotel was reduced to Swiss cheese in a matter of minutes. 

Screams came from both inside and outside as debris and water rained down on people. 

I erected a shield of water above the three of us so that we weren’t hit.

A wave of magic dispersing set my hair on end. The magic that kept the guests in the hotel was held within the walls. If you took out the walls, the magic dispersed. 

Joining the screams of people was the wail of sirens, come to the aid. We would have to be fast. 

Kids of all ages poured out of the hotel; dazed, confused, and soaking wet. I didn’t see the kids I’d come for among them. 

I let my hold on the water go and there were a few moments of stunned calm within the building. “Come on!” I shouted above the confusion and pulled the demigods into the building. 

“Why are we here?” Luke asked.

“You ruined the beds. Every one of them,” Clovis wailed. “And my feet are wet.”

“Quit your whining, Clovis. You’re going back to Camp right after this.” I’ve never seen what kind of damage I could do to the inside of a building. I mean, sure, I’ve accidentally blown up a lot of places, but that was usually with firepower. Not with my own powers. 

Every single surface from the floor to the vaulted ceilings was wet. There were massive holes in whatever unfortunate machinery or furniture got in my way. The power had gone out and live wires sparked. At the front desk - what was left of it - there were a couple of neon green credit cards. I shoved them in my pocket. 

“Be careful,” I murmured as we avoided a puddle that danced with electricity. 

“Ambrosia won’t cure that,” Luke agreed quietly. 

I willed our shoes to stay dry. It was better to be safe than sorry. I couldn’t afford to lose either Luke or Clovis. “Nico! Bianca!” I yelled as we walked through the first floor.

There were still some stragglers making their way out of the building. I ignored them. 

“Nico!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, which wasn’t very loud thanks to the earlier strangulation. “Bianca!” I knew that Alecto hadn’t taken the Di Angelo siblings yet. They should still be here.

“Who are Nico and Bianca?” Luke asked. 

“Demigods,” I said. “We _need_ them, Luke.”

We combed the lower floors with no sign of them. They wouldn’t be on the higher ones: too close to Zeus’ domain. I stopped to think. They didn’t have their memories. Even without mine, I’d followed my instincts. They were children of the Underworld, which meant that - “The basement!” I sprinted down the stairs. 

Luke was hard on my heels and Clovis dragged along behind us. 

I heard the slip of a body on concrete. “Percy!” Clovis yelled from a flight up. 

“Luke, go help him before he breaks his neck. He isn’t any use to me dead,” I ordered. “I’ll meet you at the basement.”

Luke’s footsteps reversed, the sound going up. 

I ran until I got to a door marked Basement. It was partially open and there was water trickling down into it. I could sense the growing body of water behind the door. “Oh no.” I pushed the door open and saw the shine of water coming halfway up the stairs. “Nico! Bianca!” My voice echoed back to me. 

“Help us!” A girl’s voice shouted back. I recognized it. “We’re trapped!” 

“Is Nico okay?” I called. It worried me that I hadn’t heard him yet. 

“I’m okay!” He yelled. He still had the high pitched voice of a child.

“Hurry!” Bianca said, “I can’t hold it forever!” 

Hold what? I descended into the dark basement. The water was cold. I made a bubble around myself. “Tell me where you are!” The yelling made my throat hurt and I could taste blood at the back of my mouth. 

“In the back!” Bianca’s voice was strained. “The water is heavy.”

They were underwater. My throat got tight. If they died, I would never forgive myself. “Hold on a little longer. I’m coming.” Between getting choked up and all the yelling, my voice came out as a broken whisper. I made my way to the far side of the basement. Pieces of old game machinery floated around me. Another neon green credit card floated past me and I snagged it out of the water. Thank you very much. “Keep talking!” 

“What’s your name?” Nico asked. 

I followed his voice. Somewhere to my right. I could sort of sense something in the water in that direction. “Percy Jackson,” I said back. 

“How do you know our names?” Bianca’s voice wavered.

“I’m your cousin. On your dad's side.” Now I could smell blood. I guess nectar only went so far when you were strangled by a Titan God. 

“Percy, are you close?” 

I walked into a wall of darkness. I couldn’t see or move past it. That had to be them. Nico had been thirteen or fourteen before he learned to use darkness as a shield so it was pretty impressive that Bianca was able to do it. “I think I found you. Bianca, you have to let your shield down.”

“We’ll drown!” 

“I won’t let you drown. I swear that you and Nico will never drown.” I pushed against her shield of darkness. She was powerful already but I worried that this was just adrenaline. “Let down the shield, Bianca. If you keep it up too long, it’ll sap all your energy and kill you.” 

That did it. 

The darkness disappeared. The second it did, I expanded my bubble to include the Di Angelo siblings. They were wedged in the corner, holding each other. Their faces were pale, eyes wide with fear. 

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Ciao,” I greeted them with the only Italian I knew. 

“Ciao,” Nico said breathlessly. He looked around the bubble with wide brown eyes. They were full of excitement and not fear now that they had officially been rescued. “You’re our cousin? Why doesn’t your shield look dark?” 

“Don’t you see the resemblance?” I teased him. We had the same sharp jawline and silky black hair. I knelt beside Bianca. “We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”

Bianca trembled. She looked a little green around the edges, the way Nico used to look after over exerting himself. She nodded and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ve never done that before.” 

“It will get easier,” I promised. 

Though even after growing up, Nico still became exhausted if he used his powers too long or too hard. 

Now that they were both on their feet, I let us drift back to the stairs. They were still wet so I dried their clothing. I wanted to tell them about their heritage, but the more they knew, the more monsters they would attract. They had to get back to Camp safely. 

Luke and Clovis met us at the stairs. They were both soaking wet. Clovis looked miserable. “You found them alive. I thought for sure that you’d drowned them,” Clovis commented. 

“Luke, Clovis, these are Bianca and Nico Di Angelo.” I pointed to Luke and addressed the kids, “He’s our cousin too. Your dad had a lot of brothers.” 

Bianca stood between Nico and the rest of us, her eyes wary. She looked like she expected us to bite. Her silky black hair hung in her eyes. Then she looked around the hotel. “What on earth happened?” 

“They were due for a renovation,” I said. 

Bianca had a cagey look about her, as though she was looking for the nearest exit. There were plenty to choose from. “Thanks for saving us-”

I cut her off. “Let's go outside. It’s dangerous here.”

We went out a hole in the back wall. The police and fire department had arrived and none of us wanted to explain what we were doing. I still had that brick of cocaine in my backpack too. 

Once we were outside and a couple blocks away from the Lotus Hotel, we stopped. I handed one of the green credit cards to Clovis. “The family lawyer sent us to collect you.” I smiled at Luke. “Well, they sent _Luke_ to collect you and bring you home. Clovis and I volunteered to come. But only Clovis will be escorting you home. Luke promised to take me sightseeing.” 

Clovis looked between me and the kids. “How in the Underworld am I supposed to get them home, Percy?” 

I took a drachma out of my pocket and flipped it towards the road. _“Stêthi, Ô hárma diabolês!”_ The drachma disappeared into the asphalt. 

In a few seconds, a taxi made of gray smoke appeared. The window rolled down. “You’re out of our area!” One of the Gray Sisters said. 

I pointed to the credit card in Clovis’ hand. “That should be sufficient payment to get these three back to Camp Half-Blood.” 

The Sister with the eye looked at the card and her expression lit up. “Oh yes, that will certainly do. Come along now, come along.” 

Bianca put her arm around Nico. She looked at me, searched my face for something. “We don’t have a choice, do we?” 

I shook my head. “You and Nico will be safe,” I promised her. “Clovis will take care of you and home is safe.” At least it was until someone found out that they were children of Hades. 

“Bianca,” Nico whispered, “I like him. I think we should go.” He was practically jumping up and down with excitement, eyes alight as he stared at the taxi. 

Bianca reluctantly got into the taxi. She looked alarmed by the black chains that served as seat belts. 

Nico bounced in after her. 

Before Clovis got in, I took the bag that Ares had given him. Still needed that. In its place, I gave Clovis the bag with the cocaine. “Do _not_ open this. And don’t let anyone get into it.” 

Clovis, who had gone through my memories, nodded. “I’ll make sure they get to Camp safe. You be careful, Percy. Watch your back.” His eyes flicked to Luke. 

Luke definitely caught that. He frowned, the scar on his face stretching. 

The Gray Sisters’ Taxi drove away with half of my army. I knew that they would get them to Camp Half-Blood just fine because no one in the car would want to steal their eye. 

Once they were gone, I turned to Luke. “Let’s find a place to stay tonight.” 

It was obvious that Luke didn’t want to be alone with me. I had to pressure him into sharing a room. He didn’t let me touch him, actually flinched away if I reached for him. He was jumpy and his nerves were shot. I don’t think he trusted himself. 

As soon as we got to our room, Luke disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the lock click. A few minutes later, the shower started. 

I really wanted to shower too but I could wait. Instead, I kicked off my sneakers and popped my toes. My next move was to drink some more nectar and watch my bruises fade in the full-length mirror that hung in the hallway. I hummed in my throat, just to see how torn up my vocal chords still were. Not too bad. I’d probably be fine by tomorrow. 

I sat on the floor with our backpacks and began to sort through what we needed and what we didn’t. The Medusa robes could go, though they’d served us well. We could just steal a blanket from the hotel if we really needed to. The bloody remains of my shirt had been stuffed into Luke’s pack and I put that in the discard pile. Reluctantly, I also decided against keeping the souvenirs from Waterland. It was tiring carrying around four backpacks. 

In the pile of things to keep were Aphrodite’s shimmering scarf, Hepheastus’ fine golden net (which I left in the backpack so that I didn’t cut up my hands again), the nectar and ambrosia, and the backpack that Ares had given us. The clothes inside were the exact right sizes but all the food was gone. The set of clothes for Clovis went directly into the discard pile. He wouldn’t be needing them. 

I counted all of our drachmas - one hundred and thirty - and our mortal cash - $20. There were still two of the neon green Lotus Hotel and Casino unlimited credit cards. 

That left us with four backpacks, still. I shifted the contents of Luke’s backpack into mine, since I had the room. He could carry the one containing the Master Bolt. Or, the one that _would_ contain the Master Bolt. 

Thirty minutes later, Luke came out of the bathroom. He wore a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else. “Any of those gonna fit me?”

I nodded and tossed a pile of clothes at him. Now that Luke was out of the bathroom, I scooped up my clothes and darted through the doorway. 

It was one of the most luxurious showers I’d ever taken. The hot water felt so good on my sore muscles. It stung the claw marks across my chest but I didn’t care. I healed my throat with the water. Getting all the travel grime off my body was the best feeling ever. Between the two of us, Luke and I used all the shampoo and conditioner provided by the hotel. That was fine: I wasn’t sure when we would get the chance to shower next so it wasn’t worth taking them. And of course, I took the opportunity to get off. 

The clothes Ares had given us were jeans and t-shirts, a fresh pair of socks. It was so good to have clean socks and a shirt that wasn’t ripped or burned. 

Luke had made a pot of coffee and sat staring blankly at the television. 

The screen showed an image of me in the corner and my stepdad being interviewed. Along the bottom of the screen was a hotline to call if anyone had any information on my whereabouts. The newsperson was rattling off my list of supposed crimes, which included blowing up a building (unspecified as to which one), grand theft auto and getting expelled from every school I’d ever been in. Smelly Gabe was having a field day giving them made up stories about what a terror I was and hinting that I’d done something to my mother. 

I changed the channel. “I didn’t steal a single gods-damned car,” I pouted. Our room had two beds, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but I sat down on the one Luke didn’t occupy. 

“You did blow up two buildings,” Luke muttered. He tore his eyes away from the television to stare into his coffee cup. 

I snuggled beneath the covers. A real bed. It felt so good. “Did they mention you and Clovis?” I hugged one of the pillows. 

“No.” Luke’s tone was flat. He turned the television off, drained the rest of his coffee, and then began to turn the lights off in the room. 

Despite the lights being turned off, the room was far from dark. Light came from beneath the door, through the crack in the curtains, from various electronic appliances. I could make out Luke’s form as he pulled down the covers of the other bed and got beneath them. 

Luke’s sigh was tired. 

Luke was only about five feet away but it made me antsy. It had only been a month, but in that time I hadn’t slept more than a foot away from him and less if I could help it. I laid on my side, watching the rise and fall of his breathing. Thoughts of my Quest swarmed in my mind. Tomorrow we would go to the Underworld. I would talk to Hades and then confront Ares for a fight. 

Were Luke’s sneakers still enchanted to drag the wearer into Tartarus? What if that was how I lost him? Literally losing him to the depths. The poison he’d gotten to kill Thalia’s tree was from Tartarus. Did he go get it himself? No, it couldn’t be. Luke hadn’t looked like he’d been through Tartarus. Well, at least not when I confronted him after getting the Golden Fleece. It was only after that failure that Luke had begun to look bad. What did Kronos do to him? Would he do it again? 

I dozed in and out of sleep, occasionally checking the red numbers of the alarm clock. 

The digital clock read 1:02am when Luke stirred. He got out of bed, walked over to me, and stared down at me. Then, he went around to the other side of my bed and climbed in beside me. 

I expected him to stay on his side of the bed, but Luke pressed up against my back. Heat radiated off him but I pushed back, firmly lining up our bodies. 

Luke’s arm draped over my waist and he buried his nose in my hair. The lines of his body were hard against me, and so tantalizing. I could feel the strength in his muscles. 

My desire for Luke was no secret and it burned as hot as my love for him did. 

However, I didn’t expect it to go in that direction and it didn’t. Luke kept the hand that was draped over me flat on the mattress and didn’t move except to breathe. He just wanted to be close and I could relate. I hated to sleep alone. 

Mostly, I was just happy that Luke was touching me again of his own free will and I didn’t want to mess that up. 

Even though Luke was curled up against me, I could tell he wasn’t sleeping. A half hour later, we were both still awake. 

“I need new shoes,” Luke muttered after another hour of silence. 

“We’ll get you some before we go to the Underworld,” I whispered back. 

“How do you know so much about me, Percy? Grover said you didn’t even know who your Godly parent was until last month. But Clovis seems to think you know everything in the universe.” 

I snorted. “I don’t know everything. But I do know a lot.” I slid my fingers between Luke’s fingers. 

Luke gently squeezed my hand. There was no threat in the action like there had been earlier. “What did my dad want from you?” 

“He asked me to save you,” I murmured. 

“Save me from _what_?” 

“Yourself. Kronos. The Fates.” 

Luke growled softly. “I hate being a demigod.”

It was a pain in the ass to be a demigod. I nodded in agreement. 

“Why does he think you can save me?” 

I shrugged. I didn’t really know why Hermes had asked me the first time. “Because you’re my friend. Because personal loyalty is my fatal flaw. Because I’m the hero and savior of Olympus.” I frowned. _At least I used to be._

“What happens to me?” 

“If you stay with Kronos? Nothing good.” I hesitated, unsure of how much to share. “You recruit demigods from Camp and buy the unclaimed ones that haven’t been to Camp yet. None of them make it out of the war alive. You have sex with a lot of monster ladies. I think it was...I think they were supposed to keep an eye on you. And that it was, um, kind of like a last meal sort of thing.”

Luke squeezed my hand again. 

“The first time I saw Apollo, I thought he was you.” 

Luke snorted. “Really?” 

“You’re hot,” I said defensively. My smile faded. “But after Kronos decided to make you his host you...looked twenty years older. Your hair was gray and every word that came out of your mouth sounded like it hurt. Your scar looked fresh, like it had just happened.” I had the urge to run my fingers over Luke's scar, mostly because I knew it drove him up a wall, but didn’t dare turn around. 

“Why does he make me his host?” All traces of humor had vanished from Luke’s voice. 

“You failed him too many times.”

Luke was silent. 

“I don’t know how you were able to hold the sky after all the demigods you killed but dad said you’re an interesting case.”

“Hold the sky as in the way Atlas holds the sky?” Luke repeated. 

If I remembered it, I could still draw up a phantom pain from my turn holding the sky. My voice broke when I said, “yeah.” I swallowed. “We all got matching gray streaks in our hair.”

“We all?”

“You, me, and Annabeth. You took the sky to free Atlas so Kronos could use him as his General. Annabeth was kidnapped and took the sky before it killed you. Artemis was hunting something but wound up there and held the sky to save the maiden. And I took the sky from Artemis so she could fight.” 

Luke took a slow, deliberate breath. 

“That’s definitely the second worst thing that ever happened to me,” I said with a smile because if I didn’t smile, I might cry. Yay PTSD. “But we’re talking about you. So anyway. You die. Someone kicks you off a cliff.” I wasn’t yet going to tell him it was Thalia. 

“Oh,” Luke said. “Is that -“

“No. That’s just the first time.”

“The first time.”

I rubbed my thumb over his hand. I pushed myself closer to him, even though I couldn’t get any closer. I could feel his heart beating hard through our shirts. “I’m not sure how many times you died. When you weren’t fighting us, you were fighting the Romans.” 

Luke squeezed me close to him. He rested his chin on top of my head. “How do I die? The last time?” 

“I’ll tell you after you denounce Kronos,” I said. Until he did, I couldn’t fully trust him. But once Luke did that, then Kronos wouldn’t be able to use him as a spy. I hoped. 

“Do you kill me?”

“No.” Not directly, anyway. 

Luke must have picked up on something in my voice because he said, “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“You’re a son of Hermes. Don’t you know if I’m lying?” Too late, I realized that saying his name would give Hermes the power to spy on us. I’d have to be more careful about that. 

Luke made a noise in his throat. “I can tell that _you_ believe what you’re saying but it hasn’t come to pass.” 

“Did you just call me crazy?” I asked, a little offended. 

“No,” Luke said in a way that meant yes. 

I rolled over to face him. It was difficult to make out his expression. He let me slot my leg between his thighs. “Maybe this will make you believe me. You want to know who taught me sword fighting? Who was my mentor? The person who was the best swordsman in three hundred years? It was you, Luke. You taught me.” I smirked. “Didn’t you wonder how I knew your every move?” 

Luke kissed my forehead. “You’re impossible,” he murmured.

I basked in it. “You have no idea,” I said. I tipped my face up to kiss the underside of Luke’s jaw. “After today, you won’t doubt me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Clovis and Nico will show up again. I'm glad that everyone likes Clovis so much. lol


	8. I Threaten Two Gods In One Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The turning point in which Luke almost dies twice and Percy finally gets something he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it isn't Saturday, but today is my birthday so I wanted to upload today instead. 
> 
> The rating got bumped up from T to M because yes, they are going to fuck and it is going to be explicit. You're welcome. (Edit: haven’t decided when they’re going to fuck so we’re currently at an M rating for all the horniness). 
> 
> And I've "made" a [lukercy image out of the official fan art](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1092179). They have one for solangelo, why don't they have one for other ships? Especially _my_ ship. Lukercy needs more fan art, guys. I have one more present (maybe?) for you guys but you don't get it until Part Two. 
> 
> Oh. There's gonna be a Part Two.

We got Luke a new pair of shoes. The magicked ones were squeezed into his backpack. 

I kept the spare backpack because we needed to make a trip to Crusty’s Water Bed Palace. This time we walked in on our own, rather than being chased in by little gangbangers. It was better that way; Riptide wouldn’t do any damage to them but Backbiter sure as Hades would. 

“I’m Crusty,” a man greeted us. He was seven feet tall, with absolutely no hair. He had gray, leathery skin and a cold, reptilian smile. 

I held onto Luke’s arm. “My boyfriend and I are looking for a water bed.”

If Crusty thought that our age gap was inappropriate, he didn’t so much as flinch. His yellow smile grew larger. He led us to a water bed covered with black satin sheets. There were Lava Lamps built into the headboard and the mattress vibrated, so it looked like oil-flavored Jell-O. “This is my most popular model.” Crusty spread his hands proudly over the bed. “Million-hand massage. Go on, try it out.” 

I hadn’t let go of Luke’s arm and now I squeezed. “I don’t know. It isn’t really romantic enough.” 

Crusty looked at the two of us and nodded. “I’ve got just the thing for you.” He led us to a Safari deluxe model with teak-wood lions carved into the frame and a leopard-patterned comforter. 

“I don’t like cats,” Luke said sweetly. 

Crusty cocked his head. He tapped his finger to his mouth. His nails were jagged. “Of course you wouldn’t! I’ve got one you two will like. And it’s even on sale.” The third bed he showed us was the valentine-shaped Honeymoon Special. “This one has dynamic stabilizers to stop wave motion,” Crusty said proudly. “Try it out.” 

“Yeah, maybe we will,” I said. “But would it work for a big guy like you? No waves at all?”

“Guaranteed.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“Show me,” I purred. 

He sat down eagerly on the bed, patted the mattress. “No waves. See?” 

I snapped my fingers. _“Ergo.”_

Ropes lashed around Crusty and flattened him against the mattress. “Hey!” he yelled. 

“Center him just right,” I told the ropes. I uncapped Riptide. 

The ropes readjusted themselves at my command. Crusty’s whole head stuck out the top. His feet stuck out the bottom. 

“No!” he said. “Wait! This is just a demo!” 

“A few simple adjustments and you’ll fit just fine. Can’t be showing us a bed without fitting properly.” I raised Riptide. “I think I’ll start with the top.” 

“You drive a hard bargain,” he told me. And then Crusty stopped making offers. His head didn’t roll because he dissolved into golden mist. 

As soon as Crusty was gone, I picked up one of his Hermes Delivery Services stickers. There was no way I was going to be able to fit a whole bed into a box. “Do you think your dad will mail something if it isn’t in a box?” 

Luke shrugged. “As if I know what he does.” He watched me fill out the delivery slip with Camp Half-Blood’s address and Clovis’ name. I added a short list of instructions to Clovis. “Please tell me you aren’t actually going to sleep on that.” 

I looked at him with wide, innocent eyes. “But it doesn’t make any waves! And it’s shaped like a heart.” I ran my hand over the smooth sheets. “Just feel the high quality fabric. Exactly what you’d want when rolling around naked with your irresistible boyfriend.” 

“That’s illegal.” 

“You know what else is illegal?” I asked as I deposited an obscene amount of drachmas into the pouch. “Grand theft auto. Arson. Murder. Incest. Burglary. Kidnapping. All I’m saying is that my physical age is a weird place for you to draw a line.” 

There was a cash register noise and the bed disappeared. 

Luke shook his head. “Excuse me, your what now?” 

“My physical age.” Now that that task was done, I threw my arms around Luke’s neck. “Surprise! I’m twenty years old. Older than you. I should be the one calling you kid.” 

“Prove it,” Luke said. After a few heartbeats, he pulled my arms from around his neck. “Anyway, are we done here?”

I stole the drachmas from Crusty’s till to replace what I’d spent on the delivery. “So eager to get to the Underworld, Luke. Don’t worry. It’s just a block from here.” 

We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at the gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS. 

"Dead on arrival. They’ve got a sense of humor,” Luke said. 

Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors: NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING. 

We walked into the lobby. Despite being early morning, the lobby was full of people. The furniture was black leather, and every single seat was taken. There were people sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them all just fine but if I focused on any of them in particular, they started looking transparent. I could see right through their bodies. 

The security guard’s desk was a raised podium so even Luke had to look up at him. He was tall and elegant, with brown skin and beach-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag. 

“Hi Mr. Charon,” I said casually. The place didn’t really make me nervous but I held onto Luke’s hand anyway. “We’d like to go to the Underworld, please.” 

Charon’s mouth twitched. “Well, that’s refreshing.” 

“It is?” Luke asked. 

“Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No ‘There must be some mistake, Mr. Charon.’” He looked us over. All I could see was my own reflection in his tortoiseshell glasses. 

“How did you die, then?” 

“Erotic asphyxiation,” I said, pointing to myself. Then I pointed to Luke. “And suicide.” 

Luke squeezed my hand tightly. 

Charon looked between us. 

I almost wished my neck was still bruised. 

“Things got out of hand, hmm?” Charon asked. He didn’t look overly surprised. His gaze flickered to Luke. “You young people are so dramatic.” 

Neither of us said anything. 

Charon sighed. “I don’t suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with, ah, adults who live on their own, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But you’re a child and you don’t have either of those things...alas, you’ll have to take a seat for a few centuries.” 

“Oh, but we have coins.” I set two golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash I’d stolen from Crusty. 

“Well, now…” Charon moistened his lips. “Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven’t seen these in…” His fingers hovered greedily over the coins. Then Charon looked at me. 

He leaned forward and took a sniff. “You’re not dead. I should’ve known. You’re a Godling.” 

Luke’s free hand went to the butt of his sword.

I squeezed his hand tightly, without taking my eyes off Charon. “We have to get to the Underworld.” 

Charon growled and the people in the waiting room became anxious. “Leave while you can,” Charon told us. “I’ll just take these and forget I saw you.” 

I snatched the coins before he got close. “No service, no tip,” I snarled back. Then I let my hackles fall. I sighed forlornly. “And it’s such a shame too. We had so much more to offer.” I held up the entire bag of drachmas that I’d gotten from Crusty. No need to let Charon know that there were more hidden away in our backpacks. 

Charon’s growl abruptly smoothed into a lion’s purr. “Do you think I can be bought, Godling? Er, just out of curiosity, how much have you got there?” 

“A lot,” I said vaguely. “I bet Hades doesn’t pay you enough for such hard work. And that suit looks expensive.”

“Oh you don’t know the half of it. How would you like to babysit these spirits all day? Always ‘Please don’t let me be dead’ or ‘Please let me across for free.’ I haven’t had a pay raise in three thousand years. My suits are very expensive.” 

“You deserve better,” I agreed. “A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay.” With each word, I stacked another gold coin onto the counter. 

Beside me, Luke had relaxed a little and so did the dead people in the waiting room. 

“I must say, lad, you’re making some sense now. Just a little,” Charon said. 

I stacked another few coins. “I could mention a pay raise while I’m talking to Hades.” 

Charon sighed. “The boat’s almost full anyway. I might as well add you two and be off.” He stood, scooped up our money, and said, “Come along.” 

We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn’t make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, “Freeloaders.” 

He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with the souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass. “Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I’m gone,” Charon announced to the waiting room. “And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I’ll make sure you’re here for another thousand years. Understand?” He shut the doors and put a key card into the elevator panel. 

We started to descend. 

Luke used his free hand to turn my face towards him. His blue eyes were wide, pupils dilated in the dim lighting. He leaned down and brushed his lips against my cheek. “We are going to get out of here, right?” 

I nodded.

The elevator had begun to sway. The spirits around us were suddenly wearing hooded robes. Charon’s creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe. Where his eyes should have been were empty socks filled with night and death and despair. When I blinked again, the elevator was a boat and Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river. It was polluted with dead animals and strange human things. 

“The River Styx…” Luke murmured. He’d plastered himself to me, kept so close I could feel his heart beating. 

I leaned into him. We would get out of here, of that I had no doubt. But being in the Underworld was still so unnerving. I had no idea how Nico managed to spend most of his time down here. I lifted one arm and curled it around Luke’s neck. At the same time, I mentally tugged on the River Styx. Nothing happened but I wasn’t surprised. 

“You’re very convincing, you know. Might actually die like that for real one of these days,” Charon said to us. “We get plenty of folks who died sex related deaths down here.” 

“Percy,” Luke murmured. “Please, please tell me that the incident in the truck wasn’t erotic.” 

I was glad that I wasn’t facing Luke because he couldn’t see my eye roll. In a whisper, I said, “Oh no. That was mostly annoying.”

“Annoying,” Luke echoed, incredilous. 

“Sounds like you’re going to lose this one if you don’t get your act together, boy,” Charon said helpfully. 

Luke made an uncertain rumbling noise in his throat. “You’re -“

“Older than you,” I said gently. I twisted around to kiss Luke’s throat. “By the end of the day, I’ll have you on your knees pledging yourself to me.” 

“This is a PG rated boat ride, lads,” Charon said. 

“Sorry Mr. Charon,” I said louder. 

Luke’s hands settled on the small of my back. “You’re very confident about this.”

I was far from confident about Luke’s choice. Could I impress him without getting killed today? Probably. Maybe. I kept my face hidden from him so he couldn’t see my anxiety. “Either you join my side or you die.”

“Because you’ll kill me?” Luke asked. His mouth was right next to my ear and that made it easy to forget where we were. 

I never thought that I could get an erection in the Underworld but here we were. I did not miss being twelve. “If someone else doesn’t first, yeah. I will. I don’t _want_ to, Luke. I don’t hate you anymore. But I can’t let you stay on _his_ side and death might be better than whatever the Gods come up with.” 

Luke sighed. He turned me around and draped himself over my back. 

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. The howl of a large animal came from somewhere nearby; Cerberus. 

“Old Three-Face is hungry,” Charon said. His smile was skeletal. “Bad luck for you, Godlings.” 

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Luke murmured. 

“I’m sure,” I answered. 

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. 

Charon said, “I’d wish you luck, mates, but there isn’t any down here. Mind you, don’t forget to mention my pay raise.” He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded a lot like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river. 

Luke and I followed the spirits up a well-worn path. 

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” Luke said as he looked around. 

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were toll booths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon. 

The dead queued up in three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling. 

"What would you choose?” I asked Luke, wondering if his answer would be the same as before. 

“Isles of the Blest. Rebirth. Try for three times.” 

It was so close to what Luke’s last words were that I shivered. I pressed closer to him. “Me too.” 

“Maybe I’ll see you in our next life,” Luke said with a small smile. 

The ground shook with the howl of a dog.

I wasn’t entirely sure that this didn’t count as another life. Now I wished I knew. But there were other things to worry about right now. Like the fact that Cerberus was in front of us, standing on his massive paws and staring at us with all three heads. “It can smell us,” I whispered. 

Luke took a deep breath. “We have a plan, right? Your plan is going to work?” 

I nodded again. As we stood there, Cerberus became clearer. We were dying. I slung my backpack around to the front and pulled a red rubber dodgeball out of it. “Hey, big fella. I bet they don’t play with you much,” I called up to the dog. 

Cerberus barked so loudly that my ears rang. 

“Good boy,” I said. I held up the ball. “See the ball? You want the ball, Cerberus? Sit!” 

Cerberus looked as stunned as Luke. All three of his heads cocked sideways. 

“Sit!” I called again. 

Cerberus licked his three sets of lips, shifted on his haunches, and sat. He immediately crushed a dozen spirits who had been passing underneath him in the EZ DEATH line. 

“Good boy!” I called, smiling. I threw the ball. 

Cerberus caught it in his middle mouth. It was just big enough for him to chew. The other heads started snapping at the middle, trying to get the new toy. 

“Drop it!” I ordered. 

Cerberus’ heads stopped fighting and looked at me. The ball was wedged between his teeth. He made a loud whimper and then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten in half, at my feet. 

I picked up the ball and tried not to make a face as my hand was coated in monster dog drool. It was thicker than the drool even from Mrs. O’Leary. “Good boy,” I said. In the same tone I used to talk to Cerberus, I said, “Luke, get ready to go in the EZ DEATH line.” 

I threw the ball one last time. 

Luke and I took off at a brisk walk underneath the massive dog. He was no less scary from the back. 

Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. 

I sighed. “No,” I whispered, knowing what was coming next. I turned to face the dog. 

Cerberus looked mournfully at me. The ball was still mostly in one piece. 

“Good boy,” I said. “Tell you what, I’ll send someone really nice down here to play with you, okay? Would you like that?” 

Cerberus whimpered. 

I pushed Luke through the metal detector. 

It immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. “Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!” 

“Run!” I shouted at Luke. 

We burst through the gate, which set off even more alarms blaring, and raced into the Underworld. A few minutes later, we were hiding in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls scuttled past, yelling for backup. They didn’t yell for the Furies, I noticed. 

Luke and I were pressed chest to chest, thigh to thigh, squeezed into the space. His eyes were wide. “Was that your plan?” He hissed at me. 

“It worked last time,” I hissed back. 

Luke cupped my cheeks and kissed my forehead. 

I smiled at him. Warmth curled through me. “Let’s go.” 

The Fields of Asphodel were as bleak as I remembered. They were so massive that there was no end in sight, packed full of people who just milled around in the darkness. There was whispering but no real voices stood out. Black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black poplars grew in clumps here and there. 

Hazel was somewhere among them but I couldn’t find her and even if I could, Death was unchained. I wouldn’t be able to bring her back. 

Some of the dead came up to us and chattered like bats but moved away when they realized we couldn’t understand them. 

It was sad. 

We crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates towards a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read: 

JUDGEMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND  
ETERNAL DAMNATION!  
Welcome, Newly Deceased! 

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines. 

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path towards the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. 

To the right, the path led down to a small valley surrounded by walls. It was the only happy place in the Underworld. The neighborhoods had beautiful houses from every time period, silver and gold flowers, and rainbow grass. I could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking. 

“Elysium,” Luke breathed. He’d paused to look at it. 

In the middle of the valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times had achieved Elysium. There were so few people there. I had no idea if I would be able to achieve it, even though I desperately wanted to. I had no idea if any of this would still be here by the time I was done. 

“We’ll get there one day,” I said, trying to sound confident. 

The color faded from our clothes as we left the judgement pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. After a few miles of walking, Hades’ palace finally came into view. It was made of glittering black obsidian. Two-story tall bronze gates stood wide open. 

I held Luke’s hand as we entered Persephone’s garden. We passed multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and luminous plants. Piles of rubies and raw diamonds lay in clumps to make up for the lack of flowers. Medusa's statues were everywhere; petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs. They smiled grotesquely. In the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark. The smell was incredible and overwhelming. I suddenly wanted to eat them.

Luke licked his lips, eyed the pomegranates, and pulled me towards the palace steps. 

As he did, I noticed that there were also fountains in Persephone’s garden. I smiled and willed the water within to follow us. 

Black columns lined the black marble portico. The entry hall had a polished bronze floor that seemed to move in the gleaming torchlight. There was no ceiling, just the cavern roof far, far above. Every side door was guarded by a skeleton warrior in military gear. They all carried weapons that matched their uniforms and watched us with hollow sockets. None of them tried to stop us.

“Luke, don’t take your sword out of its sheath,” I warned under my breath. Even though my voice was low, it carried in the silence of the palace. 

Luke squeezed my hand to acknowledge me. 

The backpack that held the Master Bolt weighed a ton. I shifted it on my shoulders. 

We walked towards the big set of doors at the end of the hall. They blew open before we could knock. The room inside was exactly as I remembered it being. 

Hades was ten feet tall, dressed in black silk robes and a crown of braided gold. His skin was albino white, his shoulder-length hair twisted into a braid. He sat forward on his throne of fused human bones, looking lithe, graceful, and agitated. That was new. 

The Furies were in front of him, talking in low voices, in a language that seemed older than the Greek I knew. They didn’t bother with disguises here, it was a wings out and claws out kind of place. Alecto glared at me. 

Luke and I stopped a fair distance away from Hades’ throne. Come, I thought. My attention was only half on the God before me. 

Hades waved his hand and the Furies stepped to either side of him. His eyes were intense and they glared down at us. “You are brave to come here, Son of Poseidon,” Hades said in an oily voice. “After what you have done to me, very brave indeed. Or perhaps you are simply very foolish.” 

Numbness crept into my joints, tempting me to lie down and just take a little nap at Hades’ feet. Curl up here and sleep forever. It was as tempting as the ocean void had been. I was so tired already; a soul-weariness that I’d carried from my future body to the current one. 

Hades wasn’t going to listen to me no matter what I did. He’d always hated me. He was going to hate me even more. I fought the feeling, let go of Luke’s hand, and stepped forward. “Lord and Uncle, I come with two requests.”

Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his robe, faces of torment, as if the garments were stitched of trapped souls from the Fields of Punishment, trying to get out. “Only two requests?” Hades said. “Arrogant child. As if you have not already taken enough. Speak, then. It amuses me not to strike you dead yet.” 

His son would kill him if he struck me dead. But I couldn’t say that. “Uncle Hades,” I began. “A war among the gods would be bad for everyone. I don’t think you want a war, either. Your kingdom is...expansive. So many souls here to look after and maintain. Adding more souls is just more work for you.”

Hades’ eyes narrowed. “Of course I don’t want a war, Godling! Do you have any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone? How many subdivisions I’ve had to open?” 

I opened my mouth like I was going to say something but Hades was on a roll. 

“More security ghouls,” he moaned. “Traffic problems at the judgement pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich God, Percy Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!” 

“Charon wants a pay raise,” I chimed in. 

“Don’t get me started on Charon!” Hades yelled. “He’s been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere and I’ve had to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane! And the dead just keep arriving. No, Godling, I did not ask for this war. Your father may fool Zeus, boy, but I am not so stupid. I see his plan.”

“His plan?” 

“You were the thief on the winter solstice,” Hades said. “Your father thought to keep you his little secret. He directed you into the throne room on Olympus. You took the Master Bolt and my helm. Had I not sent my Fury to discover you at Yancy Academy, Poseidon might have succeeded in hiding his scheme to start a war. But now you have been forced into the open. You will be exposed as Poseidon’s thief and I will have my helm back!” 

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully and looked down at the floor. It was covered with water that reflected the vaulted ceiling. “How peculiar that you’re being accused of starting a war and I’m being accused of being a thief.” 

Hades stood up. “But you are a thief, boy! The Master Bolt is in your pack right now.” 

I slung the backpack off my shoulder and unzipped it. Inside was a two-foot-long metal cylinder, spiked on both ends, humming with energy. 

“Percy,” Luke said. “What -”

“You heroes are always the same,” Hades said. “Your pride makes you foolish, thinking you could bring such a weapon before me. I did not ask for Zeus’ Master Bolt, but since it is here, you will yield it to me. I am sure it will make an excellent bargaining tool. And now...my helm. Where is it?” 

“Uncle Hades,” I couldn’t keep the purr from my voice. “This is all a mistake.” 

“A mistake?” Hades roared.

A hundred skeleton warriors poured into the room and aimed their weapons right at us. The Furies bared their teeth at us and spread their wings. 

“There is no mistake,” Hades said. “I know why you have come - I know the _real_ reason you brought the Bolt. You came to bargain for _her_.” Hades loosed a ball of gold fire from his palm. It exploded on the steps in front of me and there was my mother, frozen in a shower of gold, just as she was the night she was taken. 

“Percy,” Luke whispered. He sounded worried. 

“Yes,” Hades said with satisfaction. “I took her. I knew, Percy Jackson, that you would come to bargain with me eventually. Return my helm and perhaps I will let her go. She is not dead, you know. Not yet. But if you displease me, that will change.” 

“I don’t have your helm. _Yet._ And I didn’t steal it. I look terrible in hats.” I said slowly. I willed the water that surrounded us to rise. It took shape and suddenly there were two figures standing on either side of me. “But I’ll admit. I did steal something of yours. If you could call it stealing when you just leave them lying around like unwanted kittens.” 

Everyone in the room froze. Luke held his breath. 

Hades’ look of shock couldn’t be hidden. “You took my children.” 

“Give me my mother back, Uncle Hades.” More water rose, thousands of small balls. They shifted and morphed into needles, all of them pointed directly at Hades and the Furies. “I swore an oath on the River Styx that no demigods would die unnecessarily under my watch. And that includes Nico and Bianca. In exchange for the protection of your children and the return of your helm, I want my mother back.” 

The entire Underworld rumbled and shook with Hades’ fury. A stalactite broke off from the ceiling and nearly hit Luke.

I deflected it with a shield over his head the same as I’d done at the Lotus Hotel and Casino. I handed Luke one of the pearls. 

Hades lifted his lip at the sight of it. “You think you can threaten me, Percy Jackson?” 

“No one is threatening anyone, Uncle Hades. We’re just negotiating,” I replied calmly. “We both know that if Zeus and Poseidon find out about your children, that they’ll try to kill them. At least Zeus will. He killed their mother.”

Pain flitted across Hades’ face only to be replaced by a black fury. “What do you know -” 

I cut him off. “I’ll protect them from the wrath of your brothers.” 

“You’re just a demigod.” 

“And demigods have the right to challenge anyone, to go anywhere, as long as they’re stupid enough to do it.” I smiled but it didn’t reach my eyes. “Isn’t that why you Gods love to use us as your pawns?” My lip curled in disgust. The water needles hardened. “Do we have a deal?” 

Hades waved his hand. 

The golden fire holding my mother vanished and she fell to the floor. I put a pearl in her hand. 

“Percy?” mom whispered. 

“Break this,” I whispered back. “It’ll take you to the surface. Do it now.” 

Mom didn’t hesitate to follow my instructions. She broke the pearl. 

For a second, nothing happened. I backed away. 

The pearl fragments exploded with a burst of green light and a gust of fresh sea wind. Mom was encased in a milky white sphere, which began to float off the ground. She would be safe. Poseidon wouldn’t let any harm come to her. 

“Luke, get out of here,” I ordered without taking my eyes off Hades. 

Luke touched my shoulder. And then I heard the shattering of the pearl against the floor. 

I waited until Luke was gone before speaking again. “I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t agree to the deal.” 

“I let your mother go and you should be glad you got that much,” Hades growled. He looked every bit like an apex predator, a panther ready to pounce. 

“How can I trust you, Uncle Hades? I swore on the River Styx but you haven’t extended the same courtesy to me.” I made the water copies of his children splinter into more needles that were aimed at Hades. The water wouldn’t hurt him - probably - but I wasn’t going to formally challenge him with Riptide. In any case, it kept the Furies at bay. 

Hades sat back and studied me. It probably wasn’t very often that demigods came and challenged the Lord of the Dead. “And what is it, exactly, that you want me to swear?”

This was a crucial moment. Last time, I’d been chased out of the Underworld. I’d barely survived. I’d left without my mom. “I want you to swear that you’ll extend the same summer solstice deadline to return your helm that Zeus gave me to return his Master Bolt, that you won’t send any monsters after us,” I stared pointedly at the Furies. “And that you won’t try to take any more of my friends or family as hostage.” 

“I, Hades Lord of the Dead, do solemnly swear on the River Styx that I will grant you peace to retrieve and return my helm until the summer solstice and that I will not take hostage any of your friends and family.” The ground rumbled again, though not nearly as fiercely as it had done the first time. “Now get out of my sight, Godling.” 

“Thank you, Uncle Hades,” I said. The needles turned downwards as one. The marble floor cracked in a thousand places as the water needles descended. “I will take care of them and I’ll make sure they’re happy.” I cracked the pearl at my feet. “It was nice seeing you, Uncle Hades. I’ll catch you later.” Then a milky white sphere enveloped me and I floated up towards the ceiling. I went right through the solid rock. 

_What belongs to the sea will always return._

For a few moments, I couldn’t see anything outside of the smooth walls of my sphere, then my pearl broke through the ocean floor. I soared upwards through the water and _ker-blam!_ Exploded on the surface in the middle of the Santa Monica Bay. 

Luke and my mom were crouched on a life buoy. 

In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire from the earthquakes Hades had caused. They were going to be in for some very bad weather today. 

A Coast Guard boat picked us up and dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier then sped off to save more people. I didn’t get a chance to talk to my mom. Luke procured her a car at my request and we sent her on her way, with fierce instructions from me to get out of the city as quickly as possible. There was going to be a tsunami. 

Mom was reluctant to leave me but in the end she did. 

Once mom was gone, Luke and I walked down the beach, watching the city burn on one side and a beautiful red sunset on the other. I felt like I’d just come back from the dead, which I had. My backpack was heavy with the Master Bolt. 

“That was impressive. And stupid,” Luke said as he looked at the burning city. The sirens were loud against the backdrop of the waves against sand. “Hades could have killed us.” He was probably very aware that he was the lightning thief and aware of how close to death he really was. 

“But he didn’t. And I got what I went there for.” There was red and black no matter which way I looked. The very ocean seemed to be on fire as it reflected the red streaked sky. “The day isn’t over yet, Luke. Don’t give up on me just yet.” 

We walked a little further. As we walked, the tide slowly inched out. It didn’t come back. Luke was quiet, lost in his own thoughts. 

I stopped in my tracks, looking down the beach. “Luke,” I said. “You’re going to want to put on your flying shoes again.” 

Ares was waiting for us in his black leather duster and sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red. “Hey kid,” Ares said with a grin. “You were supposed to die.” 

Now that Luke called me _kid_, it rankled to have Ares use the same nickname. “You tricked me,” I said. “You stole the helm and the Master Bolt.”

Ares grin grew wider. “Well, now, I didn’t steal them personally. Gods taking each other’s symbols of power - that’s a big no-no. But you’re not the only hero in the world who can run errands.” His fiery eyes seemed to flicker towards Luke. 

I pretended not to notice and delivered my lines, “Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice.” I needed to goad Ares into a fight. If Luke thought that threatening Hades was impressive then he was really going to like what I was about to do. 

The idea seemed to amuse him. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, kid, you’re impeding the war effort. See, you’ve got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus’ Master Bolt, so Zeus’ll be mad at _him._ And Hades is still looking for this…” From his pocket he took out a ski cap - the kind that bank robbers wear - and placed it between the handlebars of his motorcycle. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet. 

“The helm of darkness,” I said, completely unsurprised. 

“Exactly,” Ares said. “Now where was I? Oh yeah. Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon because he doesn’t know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going.” 

“You gave me the backpack in Denver,” I said. “The master bolt was in there the whole time.” 

We went through the back and forth of Ares explaining his master plan - really, did he have to monologue? - and me pretending to be shocked. 

I watched as again, Kronos spoke to him and gave him the words to tell me. When it happened with Ares, the God was clearly listening to something internal. It didn’t seem to be like that for Luke. Did Kronos just not speak to Luke as often? Or was Luke too used to hearing Kronos in his head to show it on the outside? 

“Let’s get back to the problem at hand, kid. You’re alive.” His angry gaze flickered over to Luke again. “I can’t have you taking that bolt to Olympus. You just might get those hard-headed idiots to listen to you. So I’ve got to kill you. Nothing personal.” Ares snapped his fingers. 

The sand exploded at his feet and out charged a wild boar, even larger and uglier than the one whose head hung above the door of Cabin five at Camp Half-Blood. The beast pawed the sand, glaring at me with beady eyes as it lowered its razor-sharp tusks and waited for the command to kill.

I stepped in a direction that no one expected me to: I stepped away from the surf. By now it was so far out that it would have taken a few minutes just to reach the water. I hoped that Ares didn’t notice and that Luke had his flying shoes on. “Fight me yourself, Ares.” 

Ares laughed, but I heard a little edge to his laughter; an uneasiness. “You don’t have what it takes.” 

“Scared?” I purred. 

“In your adolescent dreams,” Ares snapped. His sunglasses were starting to melt from the heat of his eyes. “No direct involvement. Sorry, kid. You’re not at my level.” 

I smiled.

The giant boar charged. 

“Percy!” Luke said. 

As the boar rushed me, I uncapped Riptide and sidestepped. I sheared off the flesh of its side, exposing the bones and organs beneath it. 

The boar screamed in agony. It spun around and loops of intestines fell out. The boar stepped on its own organs, hooves tangling in them. A few seconds and some drunken stumbling later, and the boar collapsed in the sand. It wouldn’t be getting up again. 

I turned back to Ares. “Are you going to fight me now?” I asked. “Or are you going to hide behind another pet pig?” 

Ares face was purple with rage. “Watch it, kid. I could turn you into - “

“A cockroach,” I said, unimpressed. “Or a tapeworm. Yeah, I’m sure. That’d save you from getting your hide whipped, wouldn’t it?” 

This wasn’t like what I’d done with Hades. This was a challenge. These were fighting words. 

Behind me, Luke said, “Percy, don’t -”

Flames erupted from Ares’ eyes and the sunglasses were history. “Oh, man, you really are asking to be smashed into a grease spot. You should listen to your boyfriend.” 

“If I lose, turn me into anything you want. Take the bolt. If I win, the helm and the bolt are mine and you have to go away.” 

Ares sneered. He swung the baseball bat off his shoulder. “How would you like to get smashed: classic or modern?” 

I showed him my sword. 

“That’s cool, dead boy,” Ares said. “Classic it is.” The baseball changed into a huge, two-handled sword. The hilt was a large silver skull with a ruby in its mouth. 

“Percy,” Luke said. “You can’t win this. He’s a God.” 

“He’s a coward,” I told him. I knew that Ares would let me say goodbye so I faced Luke. 

Luke came to me, cupped my face, and shook his head. “You can’t do this,” he whispered. “Ares outpowers you.” 

I gestured towards the setting sun. “I’ve got something to prove to the boy I love. And, you know, the fate of the world is hanging in the balance here.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Luke’s cheek, just over his scar, the same as I’d done the first time we were reintroduced. “Believe in me,” I whispered. Then I turned towards Ares. 

“You all done saying good-bye?” Ares came toward me, his black leather duster trailing behind him, his sword glinting like fire in the sunset. “I’ve been fighting for eternity, kid. My strength is unlimited and I cannot die. What have you got?” 

_A crazy idea,_ I thought but said nothing. With Ares’ back to the ocean, I could see that the tide was far, far out now. It looked like there were mountains in the distance. 

Ares cleaved downward at my head, but I wasn’t there.

I catapulted over him, and didn't need the waves to push me this time. I slashed with Riptide as I came down. 

But Ares was just as quick. He twisted and the strike that should’ve caught him directly in the spine was deflected off his sword hilt. He grinned. “Not bad, not bad.” Ares slashed again.

I was forced to jump backwards, partway onto a dune. The ocean fought me. It wanted to be free.

Soon, soon. But not just yet. 

_Get in close,_ Luke’s voice was in my head, an old memory of his training me. _When you’ve got the shorter blade, get in close._

I stepped inside with a thrust, but Ares was waiting for that. He knocked my blade out of my hands and kicked me in the chest. I went airborne - twenty, maybe thirty feet. My ribs were broken from the force of his kick and the only thing that saved my spine was the soft sand of a dune. I tasted blood in my mouth. 

“Percy!” Luke yelled. “Cops!” 

I staggered to my feet. My ribs felt like they were on fire. My vision was doubled. Riptide appeared in my hand. 

The world looked like the Fields of Punishment. The light of the setting sun had dyed the far off wave a vibrant red that mimicked lava. Smoke blew towards us, an ashy, bitter taste on my tongue. From the corner of my eye, I saw red and blue flashing lights on the shoreline boulevard. Car doors were slamming. There was yelling. It was strange that they had time to come harass us when there had just been a massive and largely unexpected earthquake. The mortals didn’t seem to have noticed that they were about to die. 

I rolled to one side as Ares’ blade slashed the sand and swiped at his face. 

Ares deflected. He always seemed to know what I was going to do the moment before I did it. Was it because he was the God of war or was he reading it in my body language? I’d have to be careful not to project in the future but for the moment all I cared about was buying time. 

“Admit it, kid,” Ares said. “You got no hope. I’m just toying with you.” 

_Okay,_ I thought, _now!_

The massive wave, well over two hundred feet tall, came rushing towards us. 

To his complete and utter surprise, I smiled back at Ares. Blood dripped from the corner of my mouth; I was sure that it was staining my teeth too. “What a coincidence,” I purred. 

Ares looked at me like I’d lost my fucking mind. 

A few seconds was all I needed. 

The tsunami sirens suddenly blared to life. It was a screaming, wailing cacophony of sound all around us and underneath it all, I heard Luke’s voice, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” 

By the time Ares finally turned around, it was too late. 

The wave crashed over us. 

I didn’t move so much as an inch but Ares was swept off his feet. I hardened the water around us to make a prison and from the water, I pulled the form of a horse. My ribs healed as I leapt onto the watery stallion’s back. I no longer tasted my own blood in my mouth. All sound was muted, the sirens from the tsunami warning and the cop cars sounded like they were coming from far away. The water flashed blue and red from the sirens, still going even though the police cars had been swept into the buildings on the boardwalk. 

I could feel Luke in the water, a golden spot on my senses, and sent help for him before he drowned. 

The stallion took me to Ares and the battle continued. Ares was no match for me in the water, even though he was a God. This wasn’t just me sticking my feet in; the ocean surrounded us. I pulled strength from it, felt so powerful that I knew I could tear the world apart if I wanted to. Earthshaker, Stormbringer, God of the Sea. 

Ares tried to fight back but he had to swim to do it. Even the fire in his eyes had dimmed to muted coals. Fire and water didn’t mix very well. He slashed at me, moves wild and slow now that he was out of his element and disoriented. 

This time, I got more than one tiny cut in. I stabbed and slashed at him, always gone by the time he turned around. Ichor - the golden blood of the Gods - flowed from the gashes. 

The roar that followed made the very sea blast back from Ares, leaving a wet circle of sand fifty feet wide. 

I’d expected it. Another wave rose up over our heads and crashed down on us. It wasn’t nearly as big as the first, but it still gave me plenty of room to ride the stallion and dodge any attacks. I rode up behind Ares and raised Riptide to cut off his head. 

Something stopped me. Light faded. Sound and color drained away. A cold, heavy presence passed over the beach, slowing time, dropping the temperature to freezing, and making me feel like life was hopeless, fighting was useless. The circle of water around us solidified into a sphere of ice. 

Ice wasn’t as easy for me to manipulate as liquid water was but I could break out of this prison Kronos tried to entrap me in if I focused. 

Ares lowered his sword. The look of pure hatred on his face turned to stunned surprise. “You have made an enemy, Godling,” Ares told me. 

The world grew darker. The ice crept in closer. 

Ares abruptly stopped speaking. His body began to glow. Wasn’t he going to curse me? 

I turned away before Ares revealed his true immortal form. 

The light died. 

I focused my energy outwards and the ice sphere exploded. The ocean was still flowing through L.A. and I hoped that it made it into DOA Records and Hades got wet feet today. In any case, he would be busy. I could feel the lifeless bodies of mortals that fell victim to my wave. 

I sent two sea snakes to get Luke, wherever he was. I couldn’t sense him in the water anymore so he must have gotten to safety. 

A few minutes later, Luke came into view. He walked just above the retreating water, winged shoes on his feet, following the snakes that crisscrossed beneath him. Despite this, he looked half drowned. He must not have gotten the shoes on in time. 

By the time they reached me, the beach was just wet sand and stranded sea critters. The two sea snakes swam up the legs of my stallion and curled around my shoulders. “You did good,” I told them and stroked their heads. 

After that, they went back to the ocean. 

Luke landed a good distance away from my stallion and the wings of his sneakers folded in. He looked shell shocked, his wide eyes a little glazed. “Threatening two Gods and drowning half of L.A. in one day is a little overkill, don’t you think?” 

“I’m competing with the guy who can stop time,” I countered. I still felt amazing but I knew as soon as I got off my horse, things were going to suck big time. 

“Somehow that seems less impressive now,” Luke muttered. He shook his head. “Now that we aren’t on the PG-Rated boat anymore…” Luke knelt in the wet sand in front of me, head bowed and shoulders hunched. “I denounce Kronos and swear my loyalty to you, Percy Jackson, on the River Styx. Use me in whatever way you want.”

“Whatever I want from you?” I asked, smirking, because I couldn’t resist banter and because Luke looked a little pathetic. 

Luke lifted his face to look me in the eye. “Anything. Everything.” 

“You know we’re on a beach? In public.” I was also still on a horse and would probably faint the second I dismounted. 

Luke cast his gaze around. The entire beachscape had changed. Water was still slowly trickling back into the ocean. “We are on a beach. Not sure how much of the public is left to witness.” 

“Yeah. Crazy thing, there was just an earthquake and tsunami,” I said. Did I just kill a bunch of people? Yes. Did I feel bad about it? Eh. “The timing seems a little inappropriate.” 

Luke gave me a tight smile. “I’m aware there was a tsunami. Because I was _in_ that tsunami.” 

“But you lived.” I looked around again, searching. “We need to find a working bus.”

Luke stood up and tried to brush the sand off his knees. Mostly it just transferred to his hands. “Dare I ask why?”

“Nico and Bianca aren’t the only demigods I want to pick up on this trip.” I hesitated, and added, “Also, I’m going to pass out the second I get off the horse.” 

Luke groaned. He ran a hand through his hair. “How about we find some hot food and a dry place to sleep for the night and then we go get them?”

“That’s very sensible of you.”

“Sometimes I have good ideas,” Luke said. His eyes flitted down. “What happened to your shoes?”

I looked down at my bare feet. “I dunno. Must’ve lost them in the fight.” There was a saying that went: you know it was bad if they lost their shoes. 

Luke shook his head again. “I suppose I’ll have to carry you to bed?” 

The idea made me smile. “That would be ideal. But considering that you nearly drowned, I suppose you could just drag me like a caveman.” 

Luke did not look impressed or amused by my suggestion. “I’d rather carry you.” He held out his arms to me. “C’mon, Percy. I’ll catch you.”

I finally let the water stallion dissolve. The second my feet touched the sand, the world spun and my legs gave out.

True to his word, Luke caught me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to A_MX, for giving my story a chance even though its a WIP and for all the gay screaming. And also to Colts12broncos18, for writing a novel of a comment that made me laugh and cry with joy. Thank you to everyone who comments on every chapter, I see you and I love you. 
> 
> It's really funny that someone mentioned Frozen 2 because, yeah, just picture Percy riding Nokk. I'm not gonna say I came up with it first, but I've always wondered why Percy needed to ride sea creatures and why he couldn't make his own ride. 
> 
> The fight scene with Ares is something that I might try to illustrate or at least do a color study of because it's so clear in my head and I desperately want to share it somehow. 
> 
> And for those of you who are wondering, the largest tsunami in California was 75ft. But it also wasn't made by a demigod...probably. And the largest tsunami ever was 1720ft. I thought 200ft was a happy medium.


	9. We Go To Wilderness School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's lots of talking and Luke surprises everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fridays are for my percico fic however, I didn't finish the chapter in time due to Chaos and Work. But this one is finished so I figured that something is better than nothing (even though I'm pretty sure there isn't much overlap with readers). 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been commenting on every chapter. I love getting binge-readers who also binge-comment. It's so much fun to see predictions and then have readers screech about being wrong (or right) fifteen minutes later when they read the next chapter. Also. I'm at 300 kudos with this fic, which is wildly more than I ever thought I'd get so thank you all for that too.

I was naked in bed with an older guy.  


There were worse ways to wake up. Luke was asleep, expression peaceful now that he wasn’t being plagued by nightmares. He still hadn’t had a chance to shave and I ran the backs of my fingers over the stubble on his jaw. 

I’ve always found Luke attractive; from the moment I first saw him right up until he died, I’d been attracted to him. Even when I hated him, I couldn’t help but notice how damn good he looked. And a secret? Even when he looked ten years older and his hair was white, I still thought he was hot. 

My crush on Luke had developed the first day I went to Camp Half-Blood, but I didn’t know it until I’d started to hate him. As it turned out, I was pretty deep in the closet and Annabeth was the safer, more logical choice at the time. Fuck, even Rachel Elizabeth Dare seemed like a better choice than Luke at the time. 

Right now, I wanted to kiss Luke, my lips on his. But I remembered him telling me no and I don’t think the blanket consent on the beach counted. I’m pretty sure Luke was in shock at the time. It isn’t every day that you visit the land of the dead, watch someone you think is a twelve-year-old fight the God of war, and then almost drown in a tsunami. I’d had to go balls to the wall batshit to impress Luke enough to make him switch sides again. Sure, I passed out after, but it worked. Luke denounced Kronos and swore his loyalty to me. 

I really wanted to kiss him. 

Instead, I got out of bed, dragging the sheet with me, and went to investigate the Taco Bell bag on the dresser. There was still food in there and an unopened bottle of coke beside it. The food was cold but I was so hungry that I didn’t care. The coke had long since become room temperature but it was delicious. 

All of our backpacks were on the floor. I was glad Luke had found them. It saved us a trip. 

I couldn’t find my clothes in the room but Riptide was set out on the nightstand next to a picture of a couple on their wedding day. The photo made me wonder where we were. The room felt too lived in to be a hotel; there were too many personal touches. 

With one last glance at Luke’s sleeping form, I left the room. This was definitely a house that someone lived in. There were pictures on the walls. I tried a door. Our clothes and Luke’s winged sneakers were hung up over the shower to dry. Our clothes were stiff with salt. There was nothing I could do about it; I wasn’t the son of the salt God. An open bottle of Tylenol sat on the counter next to an almost empty glass of water. 

The other bedroom on this floor was empty and it looked like a spare. I went downstairs. Halfway down, the wooden floorboards turned squishy from absorbing water. A thin layer of water gleamed on the ground floor. I willed myself and the sheet to stay dry. 

Everything downstairs was soaking wet and in disarray. Furniture had been knocked over or pushed into places it didn’t belong. Books were thick and distorted with waterlogged pages. Most of the glass in the windows had been shattered. A single man’s dress shoe lay on the floor. 

Looking at the shoe gave me chills. 

I went back upstairs. 

Luke was awake, sat up in bed with the comforter pooled around his waist. There were dark bags beneath his eyes. He swallowed. 

“I hope that Taco Bell was for me because I ate all of it,” I said. 

Luke gripped the sheets so hard his knuckles turned white. “It was.” 

Silence fell like stones between us. 

I pulled the sheet a little snugger around my shoulders. Nudity didn’t bother me but I felt vulnerable somehow. It took me a few long moments to realize that Luke hadn’t looked at me since I entered, which was unusual because he was normally good at maintaining eye contact. “Our clothes are salty,” I said, trying to bring us back to normal.

Luke nodded. His gaze was still somewhere to my right, looking in my direction but not directly at me. 

Outside of the house, wind howled through the empty streets. L.A. wouldn’t rebound in a few hours and I didn’t think we’d been asleep for more than that. Luke looked too tired. I felt as tired as he looked but approaching the bed didn’t seem to be the wisest course of action. 

Luke swallowed and took a deep breath like he was going to say something. Then he closed his mouth again. He rubbed his eyes and then ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t get you,” he said, finally. 

I wasn’t sure what to say so I said nothing. 

“You don’t act like a twelve-year-old. I’ve been around enough of them.” There was a bitter edge to his voice at that. It was gone again the next moment. “But you look like one. Have your balls even dropped?” 

My face turned red but I nodded. 

Luke didn’t look surprised. “Silena said that you’ve loved me for eight years and that it’s complicated. And you said that I taught you swordfighting before our first lesson. You’re too good with that sword for that to have been your first time.” He touched his cheek, scowled, and shook his head again. “Grover only found you this year but you…” Luke licked his lips. “Grover said there was a change in your behavior recently. The day that you fought the Kindly One. You asked him -”

I closed my eyes because I knew where this was going. What a stupid oversight. I knew that Luke and Grover were friends. Of course they talked. “I asked him what we were doing.” I tried to calm my racing heart. It didn’t matter if Luke knew, now that he was on my side. Before this, I’d even sort of told him what was going on. But now he wanted an explanation. 

Luke finally looked at me. “What happened on the bus? Grover said you haven’t been the same since then.”

I dropped my gaze to look down at my feet. They were so small, still. My whole body was still so small. “I’m not the Percy Jackson that Grover knew.” 

Luke inhaled sharply. “Are you a God?”

I wasn’t sure if I was more flattered or worried by Luke’s question. Why would he think that? “You’ve cut me, Luke. You know I bleed red.” 

“The Gods can make people see what they want them to see.” 

Good point.

“I’m not a God, Luke.” 

Luke looked frustrated. “Who _are_ you?” 

“Percy Jackson?” Maybe Luke hit his head during the tsunami.

Luke lifted his lip in a snarl. “What does that _mean?_” 

I cocked my head. “I don’t -” 

Luke moved so fast that I almost couldn’t track it. He tossed me onto the bed like I was a ragdoll. “Who are you? Why do you know so much? How can you threaten two Gods and walk away without a scratch? _What_ are you?” 

I sat up and pulled the sheet around my shoulders, eyeing Luke as I did. 

Luke’s blue eyes held a wild look. Every muscle was tense and coiled, ready for fight or flight. As I studied him, it occurred to me that Luke had been _very_ good about all of this and that he was running off of almost nothing. I could only imagine what he’s been thinking this whole time. 

I lifted my hands, palms out, a show of surrender, of no harm meant. “Okay,” I said. “Okay. I was going to show you when we saw Clovis again.” 

Luke growled. 

“I _am_ Percy Jackson,” I said. I forced myself to look Luke in the eye. “But I’m from eight years in the future.” 

Luke’s shoulders were raised, hackles up. He stared at me while he processed that. 

“A primordial God sent my consciousness back in time to my twelve-year-old body. So this,” I gestured to my body. “Is twelve. But I’m,” I tapped my chest. “Twenty years old.” 

Luke scowled. He twisted the sheets in his hands. Luke mouthed something to himself. He rubbed his face with both hands. His blue eyes were calculating, mind working to slot things into place. “So, if you’re telling the truth,” 

“You _know_ I am,” I pointed out. 

Hermes lie detecting skill was something that all of his kids inherited. 

Luke put a finger up to silence me. “So _if_ you’re telling the truth, then what were you sent back here to do?” 

I shifted, tired and uncomfortable. It seemed that I had found Luke’s breaking point. “It’s not very glamorous,” I admitted. “The God, and I don’t want to say his name because he’s the only one besides me who remembers any of this and is probably getting a kick out of it, he _said_ it was to give us a chance to go back and save one demigod.” I licked my lips and suddenly couldn’t meet Luke’s gaze. “But I think that was just an excuse to get us out of his hair. We’d already fought back to three generations of Gods and won. That leaves the generation before Gaea and then the primordial generation before them and the demigods would, uh, be the new ruling power. More or less.” 

Luke gestured at me to continue. 

“There are only two Gods of time. They share the same name but the spelling is different. The one you know personally is spelled with a K and in the future, he’s scattered to the winds with no hope of reforming for another milenna. The one who sent me back is spelled with a Ch and he’s much older. I’m sure he would have just smoted us but he probably thought that a war with our parents, the Olympians, would be bad. _But_ if one of us was sent on a ridiculous Quest to change the course of history then maybe we wouldn’t be so inclined to keep fighting ancient Gods.” My knees felt weak. I half expected Chronos to come busting in through the window and announcing that I’d fucked everything up and everyone I ever loved was now going to become space dust. 

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re here because the primordial Gods think that you’re a threat to them?” 

“Threat is a really big word. It’s probably closer to annoyance.” It was still dark outside and the sky didn’t show any signs of lightening anytime soon. I really wanted Luke to crawl back into bed with me. Fighting with him brought back unpleasant memories. I rubbed my eyes and stifled a yawn. “I was going to show you all of this like I did with Jason. That’s why I brought Clovis,” I said again. 

Luke frowned, his scar stretching. “But you couldn’t because I worked for Kronos and you don’t want him to know how much of an edge we’ve got on him.” 

It pleased me that Luke was talking about the subject like that and that he’d figured it out. Luke was clever, especially when it came to people and motivations. 

Luke asked, “Did you bring me on this Quest to keep an eye on me?”

I lifted my chin and met his gaze. “Partially.” I pursed my lips, thinking, then said, “I know the Quest that the God sent me on was fake. But it isn’t a bad idea. My goals are bigger than saving just one demigod.” How did I say this? How did I tell Luke about the darkness inside of him? “I chose to save you because if I didn’t convince you to switch sides before the final battle, then hundreds of demigods would die. Including you. And now that I have the power to stop it, I’m going to.” 

Luke’s hands jerked like he didn’t know what to do with them. “How do I die?”

“You remember what I told Charon?” 

Luke’s eyes widened and his eyebrows raised. He made a few noises like he was going to ask a question but wasn’t sure which to ask first. 

“A few years from now, Kronos will take over your body. Your eyes turn gold.” I saw in his face that my past actions snapped into place for him. “You break your promise to Annabeth, which turns her dagger into a cursed blade. We have one final battle and Kronos hurts Annabeth. I guess it was enough to...give you control of your body for a few minutes.” 

_Help. Please -_  
_Please, Percy_

“I...I took Annabeth’s dagger and...and you,” _don’t sugarcoat it,_ I thought. “You begged me to give it to you because if I killed you myself, Kronos would fight back and he would win.” My hands shook. “So I did. And you stabbed yourself in your Achilles heel.” I touched the place on my own body and got a chill all the way down to my toes. 

Luke didn’t take his wide blue eyes off of me. He held his breath. 

“You made me promise not to let it happen again.” There were tears in my eyes but they didn’t fall. I could still picture it clearly, still remember the smell of blood thick on my tongue and the way Luke’s hand felt like a brand on my arm. I remembered the angry desperation in his eyes as he died. My next breath was shaky, my throat was tight. “I know you still love your dad. I love mine too. But I am not going to let this happen again. This is _never_ going to happen again.” 

My whole body shook with rage. I’d always had a temper and when you combine that with personal loyalty, well, it’s a wonder that I never went this insane before. _But you did,_ my mind whispered, _the lake was just the calm before the storm._

“What happened after I died?”

That was easy enough to answer. “I’m offered godhood and turn it down in exchange for making the Gods swear on the River Styx that they’ll claim all their children by age thirteen and giving the minor Gods and Hades both Cabins at Camp Half-Blood and thrones on Olympus. Two more wars started because of the Kronos one, one right after the other. We lose a lot of demigods. I took over your role as the sword fighting teacher but, um, I wound up living at the bottom of canoe lake. Until the other God of time summoned me and then I had to start the whole nightmare all over again.” 

Luke looked dissatisfied with that answer. I was hoping he would be. Luke needed to hate the Gods as much as I did. He already did. 

It was a lot of information to take in in only a few weeks. My arrival turned Luke’s world upside down. Luke stood quietly, contemplatively. Occasionally, he raised his hands to massage his temples. Now that he had some answers, it seemed that he was doing...maybe not okay, but better. 

I was tired of being awake. Luke didn’t look like he would stab me with Backbiter anymore. Sitting quickly led to laying down in the middle of the bed, on my side, facing Luke. I yawned. It was difficult to keep my eyes open. 

Time passed before Luke spoke again, though I wasn’t sure how much. “Percy?” 

I made a noise in my throat. 

“In your past, were we...involved?” Luke asked. His tone told me that he was afraid of the answer. 

“No. I had a crush on you but it never went anywhere. You tried to kill me. A lot. Every time we met up after the solstice, right up until your final death. And I tried to kill you too.” 

The mattress shifted as Luke laid down again. It seemed that for the moment he was satisfied. “You must not have tried very hard,” he muttered. 

I didn’t want to think about that, so I didn’t respond and pretended to be asleep.

Luke knew the exact boarding school we were headed to because he knew Coach Gleeson Hedge. It was late afternoon by the time we woke up, found some clothes that _weren’_t salty - we both looked like preppies in pastel button up shirts and slacks; my slacks had to be belted and the legs rolled up to have a hope of fitting me - and stole the car out of the garage. 

The disaster relief in L.A. was so not on top of their shit that day because a couple of times we had to stop, walk, and steal another car before we could keep going. Luke had reminded me that it was probably because they were all dead. An unexpected earthquake and then record high tsunami tended to do that to mortals. 

Whatever freak out Luke had had the night before, he seemed to have gotten a handle on it. I still watched him from the corner of my eye, though. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but I didn’t expect my answers to satisfy him for long.

It was one am on June 4th before we got back to Nevada and pulled to a stop in front of the Wilderness School. It looked like a regular boarding school except that it was surrounded by miles and miles of desert, which made escape really hard. 

Luke left the keys in the car and we didn’t bother to close the doors. We walked up to the front doors and tried them. Locked. 

“Luke, do your thing,” I whispered. 

Luke pressed his forehead to the great wooden door and murmured something. A second later, there was a click as the lock opened. Luke pushed open the door. 

My gas station flip flops were outrageously loud in the silence of the sleeping school. 

“Percy!” Luke hissed. “We’re going for stealth here!”

I kicked the flip flops off and walked barefoot, much quieter. 

Luke stopped to read the directory and then pulled me up a flight of stairs. 

We weren’t the only ones down this hallway. A small shape slipped into a room at the far end of the hallway. 

“We’re looking for Leo Valdez and Piper McLean,” I whispered to Luke. It should be easy to find them since the doors had name plates on them. 

We walked past a few doors then Luke said, “it’s alphabetical.” 

We both looked down the hall. 

“Wanna make a bet?” I asked under my breath.

“Against you?” Luke scoffed. “I’m not in the habit of making bets I know I’ll lose.” 

We headed for the door that the figure slipped in. 

“I’ve never been here,” I confessed. “This isn’t where I met them.” 

We stopped outside the door. The nameplate said: 

L. VALDEZ

“Piper is a daughter of Aphrodite. She’s good at charmspeak. And Leo is the only son of Hephaestus that can make fire,” I murmured to Luke. Then I pushed open the door.

Piper punched me in the face. 

“Piper!” I growled. Before she could sucker punch me a second time, I caught her fist and spun her into Luke. 

Luke clamped a hand over her mouth and held her fast when she struggled. There was no use trying to get away from him; he was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. 

I looked around for Leo. 

Leo stood by the window, his palms glowing red hot. His eyes were wide with fear but he wasn’t looking at us. 

“Think cool thoughts, Leo,” I said softly as I approached him with my palms out. 

“Look man, we don’t have any money,” Leo said but he was distracted by the heat rising off his palms. 

“We aren’t here to rob you,” I said and cast my gaze around for something to put out Leo’s fire.

“Good going, Percy,” Luke said sarcastically from the doorway. 

Leo didn't look convinced. “Why is your bodyguard holding Piper hostage, then? At...1:23 in the morning?” 

“He isn’t my bodyguard,” I said. “Luke’s holding her because she’s going to try to charmspeak us away and we need to talk to you.” There was a water bottle on the desk. I pulled the water from it and curled it around Leo’s hands. “We’re like you,” I whispered. “We’re demigods.”

The water cooled Leo’s hands with a hiss of steam. Leo didn’t look surprised to find out he was a demigod. He stared at his hands in wonder and then at me. “What do you want to talk about?” 

I slipped off the backpack containing the master bolt and showed Leo. “Just brought a fun new toy for you to play with. But be careful. If that thing is unleashed, Nevada is going to be a crisp on the map.” 

Leo took the master bolt and weighed it in his hands. He ran his hands along the cylinder. “What do you want me to do with it?”

I licked my lips. “Can you boobytrap it?”

Leo looked surprised. He turned the master bolt over. “How am I supposed to do anything with it when I can’t open it?” 

I shrugged. “It’s okay if you can’t. I just don’t know anyone better to tinker with it.” I turned to Luke. “Let her go.”

Luke let Piper go. 

The second he did, Piper seemed to bristle like a cat. She bolted to Leo’s side. “Who are you?” She asked us, fully using her charmspeak. 

“Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon,” I said and then immediately cursed. I didn’t need my dad knowing what I was doing. Hastily I shoved the master bolt back into my backpack, next to the ski cap that was the helm of darkness.

“Luke Castellan, son of Hermes,” Luke said. He looked annoyed. 

“How do you know our names?” Piper asked, eyes narrowed.

“I’m from the future,” I answered. 

Luke cocked his head suddenly. “Someone’s coming.”

We all fell silent and sure enough there was the distinct shuffle of hooves shoved into sneakers. 

Luke must have recognized the sound too. “A satyr,” he muttered. 

“Gleeson Hedge,” I whispered back.

“Coach Hedge isn’t a satyr,” Piper hissed.

“I told you I saw furry legs!” Leo whispered. 

The footsteps got closer, closer. Coach Hedge was a lot like Piper in that he hit first and asked questions later. He swung his bat through the open door even before his face appeared. 

Luke jumped out of the way. “Hedge!” Luke growled. “Hedge, it’s Luke. Luke Castellan.”

Coach Hedge narrowed his eyes and peered into the gloom. He switched on the light. “Luke? What are you doing here?” He caught sight of Piper and swung his bat in her direction. “No girls in the boy’s dorm!” 

Piper dodged.

“I’m on a Quest, Hedge,” Luke said. 

“You know them?” Piper asked Coach Hedge.

“Luke and I go way back.” Coach Hedge looked at me. “Never met this one before. Who are you, boy?”

“Percy Jackson. Son of Poseidon,” I said. “I have a new mission for you, if you’ll take it,” I told Coach Hedge. “There are two girls in L.A., daughters of Hermes. Would you bring them to Camp Half-Blood?” 

Luke gave me a wounded look. “I have sisters in L.A.?” 

I nodded. “I figured Coach Hedge would be able to sniff them out and deliver them safely.” I looked at Coach Hedge imploringly. 

Coach Hedge didn’t look happy about being sent off, leaving the two demigods he’d been watching. He shifted from hoof to hoof and switched his baseball bat from one hand to the other. 

“Take Piper with you,” I suggested. “Luke and I need a third for our Quest and you’ll be able to deliver three demigods safely to Camp.”

It wasn’t like I didn’t want to take Piper. She was good people, dependable. But I needed Leo’s skills and having four along on a Quest was dangerous. I would feel better if I knew that she and Luke’s sisters were safe within Camp Half-Blood’s borders. 

Coach Hedge looked to Luke.

Luke nodded. 

“What’s Camp Half-Blood?” Piper asked. She, like Bianca, didn’t want to go to a strange new place. 

“It’s the safest place for demigods!” Coach Hedge said loudly. “I was going to take you once I was sure you were demigods but I can tell you’re using your charmspeak on me and if Luke is here for the other one then there’s no need to wait.” 

Piper and Leo looked at each other. Leo shrugged, as if to ask _what else can we do?_

The kids packed their stuff and a while later, we were back on the road with a full car. Coach Hedge sat wedged between Piper and Leo, telling Piper all about Camp Half-Blood. “There’s no doubt who your parent is, my dear. It’s clear as day.” Coach Hedged jerked a thumb towards Leo. “Him? I don’t know.”

Luke and I bought bus tickets to L.A. for Coach Hedge and Piper. We gave them some of our ambrosia and nectar and some money so that they could get back to Camp Half-Blood safely. 

We bought breakfast and Leo looked over the master bolt while he ate. Now that I saw Leo in the light, he was even smaller than I remembered. Sixteen-year-old Leo was slight and short but eleven-year-old Leo was just plain tiny. He looked even more like an elf now than he does in the future. 

Between bites of burger, Leo said, “I can think of some changes to make but if I can’t open it, I don’t know how to do them. I assume you want it to be subtle?” 

I nodded. 

Luke looked anxious again, scanning the restaurant. 

Leo frowned at the bolt. “What’s this made of?”

“Celestial bronze,” I said. 

“Is that why it’s glowing?”

I nodded again. If Leo couldn’t do this, I didn’t know what we were going to do. Well, obviously we were going to return the bolt to Zeus either way. But my hope had been to get an edge on him somehow. There was no way we could win in a head on battle. Cunning, trickery, and surprise would be our only advantages. Those and the fact that the Gods would severely underestimate us. The only one who wouldn’t was Athena. 

Leo finished his cheeseburger. He slurped his frosty. “So if I can’t touch what’s inside and neither of you can, then who _can_?” 

I bit my lip. “Immortals,” I muttered. 

“Something fire resistant, probably,” Luke added. “Not you, Leo.” 

I suddenly knew what we had to do. I leaned over and kissed Luke’s cheek. “You’re amazing!” I told him. “I know a guy in New York. His name is Tyson. He’s my half-brother.” 

It wasn’t uncommon for there to be siblings, either on the mortal or the immortal side of the family so Luke didn’t so much as bat an eyelash; though he must have been thinking that my mom had boned two Gods, since I was definitely not fire resistant enough to handle the master bolt. 

“Cool,” Leo said. “You sent Piper to New York, right?” Leo probably missed her and didn’t really want to hang out with two strange dudes.

“Yeah. But it’ll be a couple weeks till you see her again,” I warned him. 

Luke paid our tab with the unlimited casino card I’d given him. 

I still had one more in my pocket. As long as I didn’t lose it, I’d be set for life. Maybe I could charm it to always return to my pocket like Riptide did. “We can take the Amtrak back.”

It turned out that we had to take a Greyhound Bus back to Denver first. The ride was pretty uneventful but I noticed that thunder had begun to rumble in the distance again. Zeus wasn’t the most patient of Gods and I wasn’t sure if he knew that we had his Master Bolt in our possession. 

Once we got to Denver, it was just a matter of taking the same Amtrak train back to New Jersey and then another Greyhound to New York. So far, I’d managed to go without blowing up a single bus, so I felt pretty good about our odds of getting home quickly. 

The unlimited credit card meant that we got a first class sleeper car, which mostly meant that it looked fancier. There were the same bunks but with higher quality sheets and fresher paint. We also got to eat at the fancy dining car. 

Luke went straight for the alcohol. They served everything in really nice glasses, including draft beers. After he got his beer, he set about fixing himself and me a plate. 

I held his beer for him and my plate while he piled food onto our plates. I wasn’t sure what his thing was with feeding me - he did this at Camp too, and actually spoon fed me that time in the woods - but if there was a buffet then he took over. I didn’t really mind that Luke fixed my plate for me; he had good taste and seemed to know exactly how much I would eat so my plate was always clean by the end of the meal. 

Leo, who fixed his own plate, watched us openly. “So what are you two?” 

“Demigods,” I said. 

Luke rolled his eyes. He led us to an open table and sat down. 

I set my plate down then took a sip of his beer before handing it over. 

“That’s mine,” he said without any heat in his voice. 

“There’s a holding fee,” I said as I sat next to him. 

Leo sat opposite us, still staring. We hadn’t answered his question. “It’s cool if you’re gay. I’m not gonna judge you for that.”

“We’re queer,” I said, since I couldn’t think of another word to describe both of us. Luke fucked girl monsters but he also fucked Ethan and was into me and before, he’d grown to be into Annabeth too. I hadn’t been with any monsters but I liked everyone. “But we aren’t...together.”

I wished Luke would contradict me but he didn’t say anything. 

“Oh,” Leo said, unconvinced, and cocked his head. Then he decided it didn’t matter and went back to his food. 

We ate, keeping one eye out for monsters but not seeing any. 

It turned out that the train had showers available for first class sleepers so we all took advantage of those. Luke and I showered separately, which was just as well because it meant I could get off without suffocating in the sexual tension. I took my time in the shower, getting clean and getting off. It was really nice to have a little bit of alone time. 

And I took some time to look over my body with the mirror provided. 

My baby fat was almost entirely gone and that left flat lines. I was getting stronger, and could see the muscle beginning to form but it would be a long time before I had well-defined abs and pecs. 

All of my scars were healed to shiny skin, either pink or silver in color. The scars on my forearms were barely visible, only noticeable as something shimmery on my skin like spider web. They sat flush to my skin, were neither raised or indented. Lupa’s claw marks across my chest were also silver but these were raised slightly. She’d gotten me good. The marks from the hellhound’s teeth that decorated my right shoulder were dark pink and raised off my skin. And finally, the bite that the seat belt had taken out of me lay as a pink cut from my neck to my collarbone. 

Once I was dressed again, I called Clovis. “Hey man, you really need to work on your long distance dreaming,” I said by way of greeting.

Clovis groaned. “Why must I always be conscious around you, Percy?” It looked like he was on the floor of the Hermes Cabin. 

I ignored his complaint and asked, “How are the kids doing?” 

Clovis shrugged. “Nico’s a social butterfly and he’s been cleaning the camp store of its Mythomagic packs. Bianca seems restless. I wouldn’t be surprised if a certain Goddess came to visit her soon.” There was a question in his voice. 

“Hopefully the Goddess will wait until I’m back.” 

“As if I could stop her,” Clovis muttered. He studied me. “You seem well.”

“Luke’s on my side now,” I said. 

Clovis hummed. “Congratulations. So is this the honeymoon phase? I’ve been sleeping in your bed, by the way. The one you mailed me.” 

“Sleep in it all you want. But I’ll need it back soon.” I shook my head. “As for the honeymoon, not even close. Unless you count throwing me onto a bed as the honeymoon phase.” I frowned as I remembered it. “He freaked out on me last night.” 

Clovis sighed. “You look deceptively innocent as always, Percy.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Did you know he thought I was a god?”

Clovis laughed, a humorless sound. “Percy, you’ve been torturing the poor boy since you arrived. Now that he isn’t a threat, I’d suggest letting Luke set the pace of your relationship.”

I cocked my head. That made sense. Luke was dealing with a lot right now. My blatant crush likely wasn’t helping him sort through any of his feelings. “Okay. I’ll try.” 

Clovis rolled his eyes. 

“In the meantime, will you train Nico and Bianca on how to use their powers?” 

Clovis snorted. “You don’t know how their powers work. Why in the world would I?” 

I frowned. He was right, of course. “Just do your best until I get back.”

“If you insist.”

“I do,” I said and then ended the call. I went back to our sleeper car. 

Luke went to take his shower. Neither of us wanted to leave Leo unsupervised. Mostly because he was a flight risk and we were letting him carry the master bolt. 

While Luke was in the shower, Leo turned to me. “Aren’t you like thirteen?”

I shook my head. “I’m twenty. I just have a young face.” 

Leo looked doubtful.

“Aren’t you like seven?” I retorted. 

“I’m eleven!” Leo protested, upset by how young he looked. 

I smiled.

Realization dawned on Leo’s face. “Ooh,” he said. And then he let the subject drop. 

I was more than happy to curl up in bed with Luke. We went to bed early, which is what you did when you weren’t sure about where you’d lay your head in the future. 

I waited until Leo was asleep before trying to talk to Luke. I thought he should have some sort of warning about what he was walking into. I got up and peered over the top bunk.

Leo was out cold. 

“Percy,” came Luke’s sleep-slurred voice. “What’re you doin?” Now that he wasn’t trapped by nightmares, Luke was a light sleeper. 

“I need to talk to you,” I whispered as I sat down on our bunk. 

“Can it wait?”

“It’s been waiting,” I replied softly.

Luke pushed himself into a sitting position and yawned. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“You know how we’re going to go see my half-brother?” 

Luke made a noise of agreement. 

“Well,” I said slowly, “Tyson isn’t like me.”

“Thank gods,” Luke muttered. 

I elected to ignore that. “No. I mean he, um, he isn’t human.” No reaction. “You’ve been really chill about all of this, for which I am extremely thankful for. But I’m gonna need you to not freak out and not try to kill him. Or be mean.”

Luke was no fool. “We’re going to see a cyclops?” He hissed. 

“He’s just a kid,” I said and tried to keep _my_ cool. “And dad abandoned him too. He’s living in a refrigerator box in an alley.” 

Luke put his head in his hands and growled.

“Last time, Tyson helped me get the Golden Fleece and built me a beautiful shield. Then he went to work in my dad’s forges, underwater. He became the general of Olympus. We were on the same side then.” I bit my lip. “I don’t know if we’ll be on the same side this time. Tyson was always loyal to dad. I might even have to kill him. But until then, I want to use his natural talent with metal to our advantage.” 

Luke growled again, a soft, unhappy rumble in his throat. 

I kissed the top of Luke’s head and winced when I remembered what Clovis had suggested. “You’ve been so good,” I whispered.

Luke shivered.

I swallowed, aware of how cold-blooded I had to be when it came to Tyson. “Just don’t kill my brother until I tell you to, please.” 

Luke raised his head. His expression was one of painful resignation. “Okay.” 

I kissed Luke’s cheek one last time, wondering if he would ever let me kiss him on the mouth, and settled back in for sleep. 

Luke laid down and, after a moment, he pressed himself against me. 

It felt good to have him touch me, even when he was upset with me. Maybe _because_ he was upset with me. I wouldn't admit it out loud, but I liked that I’d gotten under his skin. 

Leo spent day two of our Amtrak trip asking question after question. He wanted to know about everything. 

We told him what we could. But the more he knew, the more danger we were in. Luke and I were both a little jumpy anyway. It had been too long since we’d come across a monster and since I was a son of Poseidon, that was just unnerving. 

Hades had granted us safe passage but Zeus promised no such thing. 

We rode into the thunderstorm when we entered the Midwest. Rain poured down by the bucketful. Thunder alternated between being far away and being so close that the train shook. Lightning lit up the prairies. I was reminded that it was all grassland out there; good burning material. The rain was likely the only thing preventing a fire, actually. 

Leo barely noticed the storm. He sat up on his bunk and tinkered with some things in his tool belt, still puzzling over the Master Bolt but unable to keep his hands still. 

I sat with Luke by the window, curled against his side and staring out across the dark plain. It was beautiful and mildly frightening. 

“I think it’s a regular storm,” Luke murmured so that only I could hear him. 

I nodded. If it was because Zeus was angry with us, the train would blow up or something equally unpleasant. 

“What do you want from me, Percy?” Luke asked, voice still low. He’s asked me that question before but this time it distinctly lacked desperation. 

I lifted my hands as though I were looking at a piece of paper. “Well if we’re going down the checklist, the next thing is to woo you.”

Luke laughed, soft and amused. 

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, face red. “I’m serious though. I don’t _actually_ just want to use you for my own devices. I want to, like, date you. And things.”

Another laugh. Luke said, “Okay.”

I blinked. My heart skipped a beat. “Okay like you understand or okay like you agree to be my boyfriend?”

“Both,” Luke replied. He kissed the top of my head. “Consider me wooed.” 

“But why? I thought…” I don’t know what I thought but it wasn’t that Luke would agree to date me this soon. Not after everything. “I thought I’d have to work harder for it. You’re so damn stubborn.”

“_I’m_ stubborn?” Luke laughed again but it was like I’d just told a joke. “Percy, you are the most stubborn person I know.” He sobered up, all traces of amusement gone. “I don’t have to worry about your age anymore. At least not in the same way.”

“Were you worried?”

Luke nodded. “Very. It’s...disturbing to find yourself suddenly attracted to...a twelve-year-old.” 

Oh. _Oh._ Man, I really fucked up there. It didn’t occur to me that Luke would _actually_ have a crisis over my age. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. 

“Well now I know,” Luke said with a shrug. “We make sense together. Same cause, same goals. We’ll both be killed if the wrong people find out.” Luke pulled me into his lap. He tipped my face so that he could kiss my cheek, just beneath my eye. “You’re smart and sweet and strong and I’m very, very attracted to you.” 

I wished we were alone. I wanted so, so many things that we couldn’t do while Leo was here…or at least while he was awake. I was sure that if I asked, Luke would let me kiss him on the mouth. But after that? I really didn’t trust myself. Kisses could be filthy things. I rubbed my cheek against his. Luke’s stubble tickled my skin. 

Luke sighed and held me. He brought one of my scarred hands up and kissed the silvery skin. My forearm scars weren’t sensitive like the one from the seat belt and they weren’t deadened like the hellhound bite on my right shoulder. 

I kissed his temple. 

And so it went, a deliberately careful exchange of kisses. Never on the lips. And Luke, I noticed, was avoiding the scar across the left side of my neck, even though it was within perfect range to kiss. Luke knew how sensitive that scar was. So avoiding it was probably a tactical move on Luke’s part. 

Whenever he got even slightly close to it, my skin broke out in goosebumps. I knew that if he were to put his mouth on me, I’d forget about being courteous to Leo.

Luke pressed his cheek to mine. He closed his eyes and sighed again. 

I, of course, couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. So I asked, “Are you scared of me?”

“Mmhm,” Luke agreed without pulling away from me. 

I looked out the window and tried to decide if this was a problem or if I was getting cold feet. I _had_ Luke. He was mine. He _agreed_ to be mine. Why did I have to look a gift lion in the mouth? Luke was an adult and ultimately, he could make his own choices regardless of how much I pressured him into it. Right? 

I tried to be happy, but mostly, I was just worried that our relationship was built on sand instead of something sturdy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read on the wiki that one of the demigods should have lie-detecting abilities and my brain went "it was Luke" and I'm rolling with it. Double checking? No thank you. Not for me. 
> 
> If anyone is wondering about Luke fixing Percy's plate for him, it's a detail I noticed on my sixth reread of The Lightning Thief. He fixes Percy's brisket for him and it's something I elaborate more on in Luke's POV fic. 
> 
> Lemony Snicket once wrote something about looking gift lions in the mouth and since then, I've never used the horse version of that phrase.


	10. Luke Tries And Mostly Fails To Hold His Shit Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke gets drunk and things get horny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the last chapter sucked, and I'm sorry. It's my least favorite chapter too. But Luke is breaking and Percy got punched in the face (and those are two unrelated incidents) so. We're getting somewhere. 
> 
> I rewrote this chapter five times and each time it got more and more horny. So I gave up and this is what you get.

  
Leo ran away.

In hindsight, I should have expected it. Not everyone wanted to be dragged into demigod life and I knew that Leo already had it bad. 

That didn’t mean I wasn’t pissed. 

Because Leo didn’t _just_ run away, which I could have forgiven, he took the master bolt with him. 

Luke hadn’t stopped cursing since we woke up and realized that Leo was no longer on the Amtrak. He’d been getting more and more creative with his curses as the hours passed and reverting to Ancient Greek more and more until he was spitting in a dead language. 

As handsome as he was, Luke looked scary when he was pissed. And he was _pissed._ I hadn’t seen him this pissed off since we thwarted his plan to get the Golden Fleece. 

I tried to keep calm.

The weather wasn’t helping. Zeus seemed to be throwing another bitch fit now that the master bolt wasn’t on track to getting to him anymore. The wind was wild and the rain was so hard and cold that it hurt. Lightning lit up the sky constantly and struck ground every few minutes.

I cursed a bit myself because it felt good to vent and then I got to work finding Leo and the master bolt. 

After talking to the Amtrak staff, we got a list of stops that had been made in the night. There were five of them and they were spread out across the states. They didn’t know which stop Leo had gotten off on. No one saw him.

Luke and I stood on the platform. Luke cursed. I paced. People passed us by with glances but left us alone. 

“Okay. So we just backtrack,” I said.

Luke shook his head. “All of the stops were in major cities. Do you have any idea how easy it is to hide a kid who doesn’t want to be found in a big city?” He would know. 

“We have to find him,” I said and tried to keep my voice level. 

“You should have told me he was a runaway,” Luke said and he _wasn’t_ trying to keep his voice level. 

I threw my hands up. “He’s only run away from foster families and relatives. I didn’t think he’d run away from us.” We couldn’t even put out a missing persons report for him because we couldn’t prove that we were related. DNA said we weren’t and we couldn’t say that our parents were Gods. 

Luke’s hand was on Backbiter and I realized that he did that when he was nervous. As though he could cut away all of his problems. “Why did he run away from relatives?”

“His mom died in a fire he started when he was eight,” I said. “But he didn’t do it on purpose. Gaea manipulated the fire.” 

Luke looked even more murderous. The look on his face was similar to the one that I’d seen Kronos wear. I half expected his eyes to be gold. “And you didn’t think to mention that?” 

“Annabeth said that he was all for adventure when she found them,” I said. “And he was really chill when I met him.”

The mention of Annabeth made Luke look even more annoyed. He drummed his fingers on Backbiter’s hilt. Then he pulled a drachma from his pocket. “Make me a rainbow,” Luke said in a voice as hard as steel. 

I pulled water from the air and manipulated it until it caught the light. 

“Leo Valdez,” Luke snarled as he threw the drachma into the rainbow. 

Leo popped into view and we saw him in a phone booth. He was talking to Piper but I’ve got no idea how that could be. Demigods couldn’t use cell phones and she was supposed to be in L.A. with Coach Hedge. 

We didn’t say anything as we spied on him and Leo didn’t notice us. 

“I just gave them the slip. I don’t know where I am but I’ll make my way to you.” A pause. “They wanted to take me to New York. Yeah. So we should stay far away from there.” 

Luke unsheathed Backbiter and cut the call. He looked contemplatively at the sword. “I’m going to go get him.”

Backbiter still gave me chills when I saw it unsheathed. The blade was deadly, even a single cut could tear something out of a person. Something vital. I’d been cut by it once...maybe that’s what happened to me. “Do you know where he is?”

Luke made a face. “I think so. Annabeth has been talking my ear off about the major cities and architecture of the world.” That made sense. She’s done the same to me. 

“How are you getting there?” I asked.

Luke slashed Backbiter through the air and a black portal appeared. “I’ll be back,” he said shortly. 

“Okay,” I said and cringed at how small my voice sounded. I had to trust Luke. 

Luke glanced at me and ruffled my hair. “I _will_ be back,” he said again, tone softer. Then he disappeared in the portal. It vanished behind him. 

I was alone on the train platform. Immediately, I wanted to cry. My eyes prickled with building tears. I couldn’t afford to have a breakdown right now. 

With Luke gone, I didn’t want to hang out at the Amtrak station so I started walking. When Luke brought Leo back, we would need to find a way to keep him from running away. 

I found a bakery that smelled good and stopped inside for some fresh bread and a soda. I bought four loaves of bread, all different kinds and colors. Then I went to a coffee shop and got their largest available travel mug. Luke liked a French Vanilla roast so I ordered one of those to fill it. And lastly, I located a pet store and got two large rats. The pet store employees thought that I was going to keep them as pets. I didn’t have the heart to tell them otherwise. 

“What are you going to name them?”

“George and Martha,” I replied and left with a cardboard box to carry my new ‘pets’. Hopefully they wouldn’t chew their way out before I could offer them up. It took some time to locate a restaurant that had both an outdoor fireplace _and_ was at a crossroads but all cities have one and this city was no exception. 

The staff at the restaurant was more than happy to let me sit on their outdoor patio while I waited for my legal guardian to collect me. After all, I was so young and had so many bags and the storm was so bad. 

As I fed the bread into the fireplace, I said, “for Hermes.”

It was no surprise when a middle-aged man in nylon jogging shorts and a New York City Marathon t-shirt came and sat down beside me. He had curly salt-and-pepper hair, blue eyes, and a sly smile. “I wasn’t expecting an offering from you, Percy Jackson.” 

“Not just you,” I said, giving the box a light shove in his direction. 

Hermes looked at it curiously. His cell phone suddenly turned into a caduceus. George and Martha hissed excitedly. 

_I told you I liked this one,_ Martha said.

_Ratsss,_ George said. 

The snakes dove for the box. There was shuffling and squealing. 

Hermes looked back to me. “My son doesn’t appear to be with you.” 

I gestured to the coffee. “Can you drink that or would you like me to burn it?” 

Hermes reached across for it. “I’ll drink it.” Even after eight years, I didn’t understand how food and drink worked for Gods. Dionysus could drink wine but all of the other Gods seemed to only drink nectar. “I assume you’re hoping for more than just an audience with me?” 

I nodded. “I’d like to purchase something. You are the God of Merchants, right?”

Hermes eyed me over his mug. “Indeed.”

I stared into the fire and steeled myself. It was going to happen anyway. This is just sooner than I thought. “I need a lotus flower.” 

“A lotus flower,” Hermes repeated. He gave me an appraising look. 

“It will help me with Luke.”

Hermes' eyes narrowed. Nothing else changed but he suddenly looked equally wary and furious. I got the feeling that he would smite me right now or always make my mail run two months late. 

“It’s not _for_ Luke,” I amended quickly. “But it will help me to help him.” Because if we failed, then Luke would die. There wasn’t a question of that. 

“You’ve been keeping me busy lately, Percy. That bed.” 

“I’m dating your son,” I blurted out. 

Hermes sighed. “Be gentle with him. His heart is fragile.” 

I nodded. 

Hermes plucked a delicate pink flower from the air. He held it out to me. “Use it wisely, Percy. The effects cannot be undone when consumed by demigods.”

My fingers brushed against Hermes’ when I took the lotus flower from him. “I understand.” 

Hermes looked to the box that used to contain two rats. “George, Martha, are you two done?” 

Martha rose first, the tip of a tail sticking from her mouth. She made a noise that might have been yes but her mouth was still full. Martha slithered back onto the caduceus. 

George was slower to rise. He had a whole leg still sticking out of his mouth and he took his time slithering to the caduceus. 

“You’ve spoiled them,” Hermes said fondly. The caduceus turned back into a cell phone. 

I blinked and Hermes was gone. 

This was as good a place as any to wait for Luke and Leo. I sat on one of the concrete planters at the very edge of the patio, letting the rain fall onto me so that it would hide my tears. The lotus flower was cradled in my lap, dry because I wanted it to be, beautiful and unassuming. 

Three hours later, the image of Luke appeared beside me in the rain. His image was split like looking through a curtain of water. “Where are you?” He asked me. 

I gave him the crossroads. 

Luke’s image vanished. 

A couple of minutes later there was a loud commotion behind me, the sound of furniture falling over. I heard Luke snarl and a wail of distress from Leo. 

Asking Leo to come peacefully was too much, apparently. 

I got up and turned around. 

Leo was stretched out on his stomach, kicking his legs wildly. His arms were in the fireplace up to the elbow. 

Luke sat immobile on Leo’s shoulders, hands clamped around Leo’s thin biceps like a vice. He weighed almost two hundred pounds and he was solid muscle; scrawny little sixty-five pound Leo wasn’t even rocking Luke. 

I walked around the fallen furniture to them. “Did you get the master bolt back?” 

“Pocket,” Luke said through gritted teeth. His hands were red and blistered. It must have hurt. 

I took Luke’s word for it, though I didn’t know how it could fit in his pocket. I crouched next to them so that I could look Leo in the face. 

“What do you want?” Leo asked, voice breaking into a sob at the end. He looked miserable and more than that, he looked terrified. I couldn’t tell if he was more scared of us or of the fire coming from his hands. 

“All I needed from you was your fire immunity and metalworking skills. Then you could have reunited with Piper in a place where the Gods and Titans wouldn’t keep trying to kill you. Surrounded by family. By people like you. We’re your family, man. We love you.” I looked down at the flower still in my hands. My heart felt heavy. Was I really going to do this? I closed my eyes and took a moment to lock all of my emotions away. It had to be done. “You shouldn’t have run, Leo.” 

I pried open Leo’s mouth and shoved the lotus flower into it. Then I clamped Leo’s jaws shut. This was tricky and I’d never done it before but I needed Leo to swallow. I made the saliva pool in his mouth and trickle down his throat until the flower went with it. 

Leo choked and coughed. He tried to arch his back but Luke was still pinning him down. He abruptly went silent and still. 

“Was that a lotus flower?” Luke asked me. 

I nodded. 

“Where did you get it?” 

“I traded for it.” I didn’t take my eyes off Leo. 

Leo’s pupils dilated so much that his irises were only a thin ring of color. He went limp beneath Luke and stared at nothing. 

Now that Luke didn’t have to hold Leo, he took a moment to eat some ambrosia and heal his hands. In seconds, the skin was healed like nothing had happened. 

I used the rainwater to extinguish the fire, since it was impossible to tell what Leo was making and what was natural. “Will you carry him?” 

Luke slid off Leo and picked him up. 

Leo was limp. His head lolled over Luke’s arm. 

“How long does this last?” Luke asked. 

“I’m not sure. Hopefully he’ll be good by the time we get to New York.” I gathered up the backpacks and my coke and put the furniture upright. 

We walked into the rain. 

Once we got back to New York, Luke was more tense than I had ever seen him. He was quiet and brooding and if he kept making that face, he was going to get wrinkles.

Leo was pretty relaxed but I’d also just given him a narcotic that wiped his memory so I didn’t expect anything else. At least he could walk on his own two feet now. 

We found Tyson on Seventy-Second Street and it wasn’t until I saw the Sphinx that I remembered where Tyson had gotten his scars. 

The Sphinx has scratched him once before I could stop her but she would never touch Tyson again. 

I uncapped Riptide and slashed off her paw before it made contact. “That’s my brother,” I snarled at her, and plunged my sword into her heart. 

The Sphinx barely had time to look surprised before she disintegrated into dust. 

I turned to Tyson. 

He flinched. 

“Are you okay, big guy?” I asked. 

Tyson stared at me with a watery brown eye. “Who are you?”

“I’m Percy Jackson. Son of the Sea God,” I said as I capped Riptide. 

Tyson brightened at the mention of dad. “I am Tyson. Son of Sea God too.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said with a smile. “Can we buy you a pizza?” 

“Yes please,” Tyson said. He sniffled and twisted to look at his back, where the Sphinx had clawed him. “Hurts,” he said sadly. 

“I’ll fix that up for you,” I promised, and pulled water from the air. It wasn’t raining now that Zeus knew we were back on track but there was enough moisture to heal the wounds to shiny scar tissue. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” Tyson said, surprised. He regarded me for a moment and then pulled me into a hug that almost broke my ribs. “You’re a good brother.”

I couldn’t meet his eye. “Thanks, Tyson,” I said. “Let’s get some food.” Then I caught sight of Luke. 

Luke’s pupils had constricted to pinpricks of black. His lip was lifted to show teeth, partially in disgust and partially in threat. His shoulders were raised with tension, one hand on Backbiter and the other keeping Leo upright. He didn’t take his eyes off of Tyson. 

“The tall one is Luke. He’s my boyfriend,” I said to Tyson. “He’s nervous to meet you.” 

When Tyson moved forward, Luke took a step backwards. Tyson stopped and frowned. 

“And the short one is Leo,” I went on like nothing had happened. 

“Who’s Leo?” Leo asked.

“You are,” I said. My heart ached. I wasn’t going to cry again; I’d done that already. But it still hurt. 

“Oh,” Leo said and smiled. “I’m Leo.” 

We wound up going to a pizza buffet, where they served like thirty different kinds of pizza and you could go up for unlimited slices. I hoped that the restaurant wouldn’t go out of business by the time we left. 

Luke, despite everything that had happened thus far, still fixed my plate for me. 

I got him a pint beer after promising the person behind the counter that it wasn’t for me, and got myself a soda. Things were going okay. I’d more or less figured out a way to trick Tyson into working on the bolt but keeping it a secret from the powers that be. 

Leo was still weirdly placid and Luke was still silently freaking out but at least Tyson was his normal self. 

Every five minutes, Tyson would get up to get more pizza or refill his soda. 

“He can talk?” Luke hissed at me, under his breath during one of these times. He didn’t let Tyson out of his sight. 

“Of course he can talk,” I hissed back. 

And the conversation ended there because Tyson came back and Luke downed his beer in three long swallows. 

I didn’t get him another one. 

“Are you sure about this?” Luke asked once Tyson left for the bathroom. He spoke in a low tone, eyes on Leo. 

Leo ignored us, steadily feeding a slice of pizza into his mouth while he watched the mortal kids play in the arcade half of the pizzaria. His expression was glazed over but his eyes were staring hard at those machines; probably imagining taking them apart. 

Instead of answering Luke, I asked him a question of my own, “Are you going to be okay?” 

Luke’s eyes narrowed. His unhappy expression turned even more unhappy. “I can handle a cyclops,” Luke said hotly. 

“Killing one, maybe,” I countered, and pointed to his empty beer mug. “Can you get through this without being drunk?”

“I’m not drunk,” Luke protested. “It’s two beers.”

I cocked my head. “Two?” 

And then Luke got up and walked to the bar. A couple minutes later, he returned with another pint of beer. When he sat down, he glared at me. 

I glared back. I hated alcohol, all of it, but beer especially because that’s what Gabe drank. The fact that they were drinking different brands didn’t make much of a difference to me; it all smelled and tasted like shit. For once I was glad that Luke and I weren’t kissing. “Well? Are you?”

Luke took a long swallow of his beer. “We’ll see,” he said and I heard the uncertainty in his voice. 

Tyson returned and began to eat more pizza. “I love pizza,” he said. If he’d overheard us from the bathroom, Tyson didn’t give any sign. I think it might have been too loud between the shrieks of children, the hiphop playing on the speakers, and the noises from the arcade games. 

“Me too,” Leo agreed. 

Once the pizza consumption slowed down, I began talking, “Luke and I want to surprise our parents.”

“Daddy,” Tyson said. He slurped his soda. Was it a good idea to give a young cyclops caffeine? I was going to find out. 

“Yup,” I agreed. “But Luke and I aren’t good with metal. So we were hoping that you two, Leo and Tyson, could make something cool.” I nudged Luke.

Luke pulled a small golden zippo lighter from his pocket. Etched into the side was a lightning bolt. He handed it to Leo with a warning, “Don’t open it.” 

Almost immediately, the lighter changed back into its original form; the long cylinder that held the master bolt. It made sense that the master bolt would change depending on who was holding it, like Hades’ helm of darkness changed into a ski mask when Ares held it. 

“Oh,” Leo said. He held the master bolt in his hands and turned it over and over. “It’s already cool.”

“Is not cool. Is very hot,” Tyson corrected. He peered at the glowing master bolt with interest. 

Some kid was having a birthday party a few tables over and the family popped little canons that shot confetti. 

We all took a moment to watch them.

“Cake,” Tyson said wistfully.

“Pretty,” Leo decided. He made an explosion motion with his hand. “Maybe it should be an explosion of...” His face screwed up with thought while he searched for the right word. “Of confetti?”

“Yes! Confetti makes things better!” Tyson agreed. 

I bit my lip and thought about that. Confetti wasn’t really dangerous. And it was highly visible. “What if we did glitter instead of confetti?” I suggested, though I had no idea how we would manage something like that. 

“Yeah!” Leo said, tone of voice almost excited. 

“Glitter!” Tyson yelled, drawing the attention of the other patrons in the restaurant. 

I smiled. “Well now that we have a plan, let's find a place to stay tonight.”

Before we left, Luke got a third beer, this one poured into a to-go cup. Which seemed like a really irresponsible thing for the pizzaria to do but they hadn’t even carded us to begin with. He sipped it through a straw while we walked down the street and kept one eye on Tyson. 

We got connecting hotel rooms in an upscale hotel whose management looked like they wanted to kick us out the second we walked into the lobby. To be fair, all of us were dirty and our clothes were torn and I wasn’t wearing shoes. Leo and I looked like children. As tall as Tyson was, he still had a child’s face. Luke was the only one who looked like he might have money but between the fact that he was clearly drunk and the fact that he hadn’t shaved in a few weeks, they didn’t look happy to see him either. 

Luke leaned over the counter to loudly whisper what we wanted and handed them the neon green card. He grinned as they ran it through their card reader. 

Their eyes widened at whatever popped up on the screen. Probably the infinity symbol again. After that, the hotel staff was terribly polite to us in that false way people were when you had money. 

We insisted on carrying our bags to our rooms ourselves. By ‘we’ I mean me, Leo, and Tyson because Luke was not doing well enough to hold things. He kept misjudging the placement of his limbs and knocking into walls, people, and potted plants. 

When we finally made it to the long hallway that held our room, Luke broke a vase. 

Leo and Tyson both looked vaguely worried by this behavior. 

My irritation with Luke grew. I unlocked the kid’s room first and let them in. 

Luke went straight to the other room through the connecting door but not without clipping his shoulder on the door frame and giving the frame a look like it had just called his mother something awful. 

I stayed to get the kids settled in. “This is your room guys. Luke and I will be just past that door.” I pointed to said door. Then I pointed to the one we’d just come through. “Don’t open your door for anyone, alright? Keep it locked.” 

Tyson was happy with the large room and getting his own bed. He jumped onto it and the bed creaked under his weight. “Yay! Soft!”

Leo still hadn’t recovered from the narcotic effects of the lotus flower. He was chill as could be, smiling in that way stoners smiled when they had no idea what was going on. His hands weren’t even fidgeting. “This is nice,” he said. “I like this.” He jumped onto the other bed and sat, looking around. 

I turned on the television for them, and set it to cartoons. I was almost positive that Leo could figure out how to use the television but I wanted them to have something to do. And if they were listening to the television, then they wouldn’t be listening to us in the next room. “Just call if you need us, alright?” Although Luke wouldn’t be much help. 

“Okay!” Tyson agreed. 

“Sure,” said Leo.

I went into the room I’d be sharing with Luke and finally put my bags down. It was a gorgeous room, one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed, and it was large. There was only one bed in this room. 

Luke sat on top of the dresser, slowly unlacing his flying shoes. He glanced up at me when I entered, noted that I’d left the door between rooms open, and looked back down at his shoes. From where he sat, Luke could see all of the entrances. “I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said and his voice had that slow quality of the drunk.

“I don’t,” I said. My heart pounded in my chest, my palms were sweaty. It took me a few long moments to realize that I was nervous. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched Luke, knowing that something was going to happen but unsure of what that something was. 

Luke glanced at the door again. 

The kids talked, voices indistinct, and laughter followed. They were fine. They weren’t paying us any attention. 

His gaze flitted back to me. “I’m not drunk,” he said in a tone that implied I’d accused him of something. Again. Luke unbuckled his belt, which held Backbiter’s sheath, and set it all on the dresser beside him. He was barefoot now, one leg still drawn up to his chest. 

“Okay,” I agreed because it was easier to agree with drunk people than to argue with them. My heart beat hard and fast and I felt my pulse between my legs with a quickening of blood. The fear I felt wasn’t fear towards Luke. I didn’t think he’d really hurt me. It was a residual fear from being around drunk men who hurt me during my childhood. I unbuckled my belt, left it on, and slid the slacks off, leaving them to drop to the floor.

Luke’s blue eyes followed the motion of my hands and then the shape of my legs back up to my crotch. His gaze lingered for a moment, taking in the small tent in the front of my boxers, then lifted his gaze to look me in the eye. His hands came up and slowly unbuttoned each of the gleaming pastel buttons on his dress shirt. Considering that he couldn’t even walk through a door without running into it, I was surprised by how easily he unbuttoned the shirt. 

Now it was my turn to watch the motion of his hands, to revel in the skin revealed by Luke’s actions. I was wet and throbbing and felt a little bit like I might faint. 

Luke’s shirt hung open and I saw the long stretch of toned torso. He was so beautiful, so handsome. 

I wanted him badly, wanted to touch and be touched in return. But I didn’t try, couldn’t make a move towards him. Clovis’ warning to let Luke take things at his own pace, coupled with Luke’s earlier actions, stayed any impulses I had to go to him. Plus he was drunk and I wasn’t going to take advantage of that. 

We studied each other. 

The laughter and voices from the next room seemed to make the silence between us even louder. I didn’t know what to say. I longed for how easy things had started out. Laying in the strawberry fields, swimming in the lake, sitting in the back of a truck. At the time those things had felt like agony, having Luke so close and so obviously wanting but denying himself. Now, I wasn’t sure that Luke even wanted me anymore. What if he was doing this out of fear? 

Kronos had said that Luke’s fear of me made him compliant. 

Something crashed into me and suddenly I was sprawled in the middle of the bed.

Luke hovered over me, not touching me but still keeping me pinned to the mattress by the mere presence of his body. Luke had moved so fast that I didn’t see him. He was, for all intents and purposes, briefly invisible. “Don’t give me that face,” Luke said, voice twisting around me in its cloyingness. 

I couldn’t breathe. Air wouldn’t enter my lungs no matter how hard I tried to pull it in. A tremor started in my hands and worked all the way down to my bones. My brain ran in circles saying, _‘I didn’t see him! I didn’t see him! I didn’t know he could move that fast!’_

Luke shifted his weight to free one hand and methodically began to unbutton the dress shirt that I wore. One button at a time, his fingers never touching my skin, Luke worked open the shirt. He never took his eyes from mine, and then there were no more buttons. Luke stroked his knuckles down the side of my face, along my neck and over my scar. 

If you trail your fingers down your neck and over your collarbone, you already know that it’s a sensitive place. Now imagine that it’s _someone else’s_ fingers touching you, which is even more intense. And finally, imagine that your nerves are so sensitive there that even your own t-shirt brushing against the spot is mildly erotic. 

Luke’s blue eyes looked into mine and I saw a raw hunger that he normally kept hidden, the desire to ravish and devour me. He stroked his fingers over the scar again.

My body remembered how to breathe but only drew air so that I could moan appropriately at the contact. My heart beat so hard that it hurt and my blood rushed to my dick so fast that I was dizzy. Now that I was breathing again, I could taste the beer on his breath. It sobered me a little, got my head back into the place it should be. I lifted my knees so that my legs were on either side of Luke’s waist. “Are you going to fuck me?” I asked because I was fairly certain that the answer was no. 

Luke blinked, surprised. “I’m not like him, you know.” 

“Like who?” I asked, expecting him to say Hermes. 

“That other Luke,” Luke said. 

I had no idea what he was referring to. “He wouldn’t fuck me either,” I confided and neglected to mention that I never asked the original Luke Castellan to fuck me and that if he’d tried, I probably would have killed him. 

“You’re too young,” Luke said and shook his head before I could protest. “And you look scared.”

“You scared me,” I agreed quietly. My brain screamed at me _‘I didn’t know he could move that fast! I didn’t know!’_

Luke’s hand shifted to the scars that Lupa had left across my chest and his expression turned thoughtful. He swayed a little, sat back on his haunches and swayed a lot more.

My legs were parted on either side of his body, spread wide. “You better not throw up on me,” I warned. 

Luke winced. “I didn’t drink that much.” He steadied himself with a hand on my knee and his gaze flitted back to the door. Then he was doubled over me, both arms wrapped around me, face buried in my neck. Luke made a noise like a hum and a moan. “I love how soft your skin is,” Luke confessed.

My back was arched so far up that our chests were pressed together and my spine was protesting. My heart, which had calmed, started racing again. Hesitantly, I ran my fingers through his hair. “Are you going to fuck me?” 

“I don’t think so,” Luke said, with his face still pressed against my neck. His breath was hot and the beer scent was stronger. 

“Good,” I said, even though part of me really wanted to talk him into fucking me right now. A larger part wanted Luke sober because as long as he was drunk, I would respond with fear. It was left over from so many times dealing with Gabe and his poker friends, who were also drinking buddies, but I’d never had time to work through that particular issue of mine. “I want you to remember it when we finally have sex.” That at least, was the truth and it was safe enough to offer up. 

Luke shifted so that our chests rubbed and he made a wanting noise in the back of his throat. “Why?” Luke asked, then added, “I am not that drunk.” He kept saying that but I didn’t believe him. Three pints of beer in less than an hour seemed like a lot. 

I don’t know what Luke’s basis for comparison was when he said my skin was so soft but I had to admit that I enjoyed the feeling of his skin gliding against mine. I was walking the fine line of not encouraging Luke and not making him angry. “I have to keep some things a mystery,” I replied cryptically. 

Luke groaned. “Did you know there is such a thing as too much mystery?” His voice was deceptively steady. 

I kissed his forehead quickly then let my head fall back onto the pillow. “This one is worth being sober for,” I promised. 

Luke pressed his open mouth to the scar along my neck and slowly dragged his lips down the length of it. 

A jolt of pleasure surged through me, all the way to my toes. For a second, I thought I was going to cum right then. 

But the next second, Luke was gone, pulling away from me completely. “I need a shower,” he muttered and barely looked at me as he rose to his feet. Luke was still unsteady as he made his way to the bathroom and it took a long time before the water turned on. 

As soon as I heard the water, I wiggled out of my clothes and wrapped my hand around my dick. I came with only a few strokes. A bit guiltily, I wiped my hand clean on the edge of the sheet. I’d have to find a way to tip the staff. “Gods,” I whispered as I lay curled up tight. My entire body trembled from adrenaline. What was that? I shivered again and pulled the comforter up to my chin even though I wasn’t cold. 

I tried to look at it as Annabeth would, analytically. She would say that this had been a very eventful night. First and foremost, Luke’s speed. He moved so quickly that I didn’t see him, didn’t even hear him. It scared me. No. The speed itself wasn’t the scary part, though it was a formidable power. It was the fact that I _didn’t know_ about it that scared me. 

Look, it’s not like I actually knew all of Luke’s secrets but I knew enough to bullshit my way through most of the behavioral quirks and motivations he had. Incredible super speed was not something he’d ever demonstrated before, ever. Despite all of the times he’d tried to kill me. If he could move that fast now, he could have done it back then too. So why didn’t he? Why didn’t he give any hint or sign that he could move so fast my eyes couldn’t track him? 

The only incident that came to mind was his fight with Thalia, the night she murdered him. Luke and Thalia had fought so hard that there were literally sparks flying from the force of their weapons impacting. They’d moved fast but I could still track them with my eye. I could still see them.

The fact that I hadn’t known about something so powerful made me uneasy. What else did Luke hide from us? Surely if Annabeth or Thalia had known, one of them would have said something to me. Like ‘hey the evil dude can move so fast that your brain can’t process his speed.’ Because Luke didn’t want us to know. Because all that time, Luke had been going easy on us. All those times we fought. Luke could have caught us anytime. He could have killed us anytime.

I thought that I’d known the extent of Luke’s powers. 

I didn’t know shit. 

Despite his speed, the impact didn’t seem to have done much damage to me. My hips were a little sore where he’d grabbed me to toss me up the mattress but if there had been marks left by him, they’d already faded. 

Secondly, and I logistically knew that this was less important, Luke wouldn’t fuck me even when he was drunk. Even when I outright asked for it. It stung. A lot. What if he _never_ fucked me? What if he would rather fuck a literal monster than me? 

As much as I wanted to keep thinking about it, I could feel myself falling asleep. It had been such a long day...

It was Luke’s return that slowly roused me from sleep, his weight on top of me and the coolness of his shower-damp skin gliding across mine. He rubbed his face against the back of my neck, made a low rumbling noise in his throat.

I made a noise of protest and nuzzled the pillow, trying to fall back into sleep. I was still sleepy, wanted to keep sleeping because it had been a long couple of days between Leo and Tyson. 

Luke was more insistent in rubbing his face against the back of my head, against my neck. He rubbed his cheek against my cheek, still making that noise like a purr. Not for the first time, Luke reminded me of a lion. 

“Luke,” I whined. It wasn’t that it didn’t feel nice, because it did. And he didn’t smell like beer anymore, which was also nice. But it was late. We needed to sleep because we had things to do tomorrow. 

“You’re upset with me,” Luke said, voice low. He kissed the back of my neck. 

He was right. I was upset with him, for a lot of reasons. But it wasn’t urgent, it wasn’t something that couldn’t wait until morning. “Tomorrow,” I said.

“What if there isn’t a tomorrow?” Luke asked. Luke nuzzled me between my shoulder blades. Was he still drunk? How long had he been in the shower? What time was it? 

“Then we die?” I mumbled. Part of me longed for the easiness of death. I was pretty sure that I would still get into Elysium because I hadn’t actually done anything bad yet and if anyone was going to forgive me for causing a natural disaster that killed hundreds of people, it would be the Lord of the Dead and his ilk. 

Luke rolled us over so that I lay on top of him, my back to his chest. 

The switch in position was unexpected and I groaned at the change. I nearly rolled off of Luke. 

Luke’s arms wrapped around me in a brief hug, holding me in place. “Easy, puppy,” he murmured, somehow sounding more like his usual self even though he’d never used that pet name for me before. His breath was tantalizing against my neck. 

I dug my heels into the mattress and pushed myself up so that my head lay next to his on the pillow, shoulder digging into his throat. It was comfortable enough that I could fall asleep like this.

Luke shifted so that I didn’t suffocate him and once it was clear that I wasn’t going to go anywhere, he eased up on his hold on me. His calloused hands smoothed down my ribs and over the jut of my hips before curling down to grasp my inner thighs. “I don’t want you to be mad at me,” Luke said in a whisper made hoarse by the pressure on his neck. 

There was no way he could touch me like that without turning me on. My body responded to Luke’s touch by shooting my temperature up and diverting all of my blood away from my brain. I was immediately hard and there was no hiding it. I hoped his hands didn’t wander higher and yet I desperately wanted them to. Words? They were beyond me. My brain wasn’t working at the moment. All I could say was his name, “Luke.” 

Luke pulled my thighs apart just a little more. He was hard, erection hot against my thigh. 

I could just see the head of his cock. It seemed a bit stupid to think that Luke didn’t still want me when the evidence was literally dripping against my leg. My legs shook.

Luke made a shushing noise. “I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.” 

“W-why?” My hands were drawn up to my chest, nails digging crescent moons into my skin. He was going to notice with me laying on him like this. Then again, Luke could defy the laws of gravity. Maybe I could too. 

Luke kneaded my thighs. His hands were so big. “Because I turned you on again and I’m not going to do anything about it.” 

I struggled to remember why this was important. Something...something about Luke being sober. Because my body was a gift and I wanted him to enjoy it properly. It was hard to remember why that mattered right now. The trembling moved up to my torso, my hands. “Why not?” 

Luke was silent for a few moments and I had the distinct impression that he was thinking about how to phrase what he wanted to convey. Slowly he said, “I need to acclimate.” 

“You aren’t a fish,” I protested without thinking. If he was the fish, then I was a tank. _Gods,_ that was stupid. Being horny made me stupid and Gods, his hands were so high up on my thighs. There was no way he wouldn’t notice how wet I was getting. 

As though reading my mind, Luke moved his hands further up my leg, towards my bended knees.

My breathing was ragged. My temperature rose until I felt flushed everywhere. I wanted his hand around my dick, wanted to feel the roughness of his hands against my skin. “Will you kiss me?”

“I think I should be sober for that.”

I echoed his words back at him, “You aren’t that drunk.”

“I think I might be.” There was no victory in hearing that my guess about Luke’s sobriety was correct. 

“Why do you keep saying no?” 

One hand left my thigh to rest on my ribs. “Because you look so young,” Luke whispered and the hand still on my thigh squeezed lightly. “And wanting you makes me hate myself.” 

We were going to have to come back to that at a later date. When my head wasn’t so foggy with hormones. “Oh,” I said. I slid my hand over his. Despite what Luke admitted, despite how severe that was, all I wanted to do was push his hand between my legs. Words. I needed to force my mouth to make words. “Why did you wake me up?”

This time both of Luke’s hands moved towards my hips and squeezed the bones. “I can’t stop thinking about how good it feels to touch you,” Luke’s voice was heavy with the guilt of a sinner in confession. 

The conversation finally caught up to me. “Are you still drunk?”

“Maybe,” he hedged. His hands massaged my hips. 

Even with as much as he’d had, I was sure that it was hours later. He should be buzzed at most. “How?”

“There’s a bar downstairs.” Luke pressed a kiss to the side of my neck, as though that would make me forgive him. Then his teeth grazed my skin.

Gods, it felt good. “I want to cum,” I said. I waited a few heartbeats for a response but didn’t get one. Just Luke’s tongue and teeth worrying a bruise into the side of my neck. “If you aren’t going to do it for me, then I’ll do it myself.” 

Luke hummed, a distinctly _‘go ahead’_ noise. 

My feet rested on his thighs. I curled my toes. “Do...do you want me to get up?” 

Luke pulled his mouth away from my neck so that he could wrap his arms around me and draw me close again, so that my shoulder dug into his throat again. “No,” he rasped. 

“Okay,” I whispered. I’ve had sex before, of course, but I was nervous about this. It wasn’t anything like the sex I’d had before and Luke wasn’t doing so hot mentally if he felt the need to get drunker. 

Luke uncrossed his arms from his chest and slowly slid them along my sides. 

I curled my hand around my cock, which was so small still that my hand covered the whole length, and shivered. I was slick with precum and my hand made an obscene wet noise as I slid it up and down. My thighs closed. I felt Luke’s cock between them and wondered how he could stand to be that turned on yet refuse to do anything about it. 

Luke moaned. His hands came to rest on my flanks, nearly gripping my butt. Luke’s hands were big, he curled them around the backs of my thighs and drew my thighs apart. 

He _had_ to notice how wet I was.

Unless he was too drunk to realize…

Stamina? What was that? I was going to cum way too soon. My legs shook. I wanted to feel the wet slide of his cock between my legs even if I couldn’t have it inside of me. 

Luke’s grip on me was tight, arms quivering as he prevented me from closing my thighs around him. He kissed my shoulder.

I thought about what his mouth would feel like on me and that hot little thought was all it took. I came all over my hand for the second time that night. I lay back on Luke, boneless and tired. Was it his racing heart that I felt or my own? 

Luke carefully rolled us over onto our sides. He reached around me to grab a corner of the sheet to wash my hand clean, stayed pressed hot against my back the whole time. 

Orgasms always made me tired, even when I _hadn’t_ been woken in the middle of the night. I went without any complaint, let Luke do what he wanted with me and vaguely had the thought that Luke should stop thinking and just go with what his body clearly wanted. 

“It isn’t that easy, Percy,” Luke said softly. He said it as though I couldn’t feel the hot length of his dick pressed against my thighs or the wetness of precum smearing against my skin. 

“Puppy,” I muttered, annoyed because Luke was being stubborn and because I was falling asleep. 

“What?”

“You called me puppy. I liked it.”

“Ah.” Luke nuzzled the back of my head, which was how this started. “Well, puppy, it isn’t that easy.” 

If Luke said anything after that, I didn’t hear because I was asleep again. 

I woke up at a reasonable hour but Luke looked very much like he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. So I got dressed and hung out with the kids until he woke up. 

Leo seemed more lively. He was in the process of stripping the copper wiring from the lamp. 

“Percy!” Tyson said when he saw me. “We have problems.” He sat at the table with the master bolt, though his hands were fiddling with something else.

Great. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “What kind of problems?” 

That something else Tyson was messing with? Turned out to be the television remote. It was in fifty pieces on the table. “We do not have proper tools,” Tyson said. 

“Yeah,” Leo chimed in. “No,” and he made a wax on wax off motion with his hands. 

“Sand paper,” Tyson said helpfully. 

“And no,” another motion, hands coming together. 

“Welder,” Tyson supplied. 

“Right,” Leo agreed. He twisted the copper into the shape of a bee. “We have no tools. And no glitter.”

“No glitter, no surprise,” Tyson said sadly. He watched Leo’s hands, interest caught by the delicate insect Leo was making. Did cyclops have ADHD too? 

“Okay,” I said. At least those were easy fixes. “We can go shopping when Luke gets up.” 

“We have another problem,” Leo said seriously. He let the bee go and it flew around the room. 

For a moment we all watched, mesmerized. For me, it was a sign that my bet was right. Leo’s mechanical genius was very much a genetic thing, something he was born with and had honed as he got older. 

“What’s the other problem?” I asked them. 

Leo’s stomach growled. “We’re hungry.” He smiled hopefully at me. 

“Me too,” I said. “There’s a restaurant downstairs. Let’s go get something to eat.” I went back into my room and wrote a note for Luke, in case he woke up while we were gone. I took the spare room key and slid my feet into Luke’s winged sneakers. They were too big for me but it was probably better than nothing. 

Leo and Tyson got their shoes on and then we headed downstairs. 

The morning staff gave us displeased, suspicious looks. Apparently they didn’t yet know that we were rich. We got disgusted looks from the other guests too. They didn’t want to share their luxurious breakfast with three loud, dirty kids. 

Breakfast was a buffet, which was common in hotels, but this was no cheap breakfast that you cooked yourself. Staff waited to make your waffles and cook your eggs. Beside the waffle station was a whole buffet table of syrups and toppings. There were six different flavors of coffee and just as many flavors of juice, and abundance of fresh, picturesque fruits. Delectable slices of ham sat next to platters of thick bacon and brown sausages. There was every kind of bread available, cut into neat slices and giving off a heavenly aroma. There wasn’t a plastic spoon in sight, every piece of silverware was real metal.

“Alright, get whatever you want and try to behave yourselves,” I said to Leo and Tyson. Now that I was in sight of food, I was famished. 

“Awesome,” Leo said and went to pick up an empty plate. 

Tyson had always been sensitive to how other people see him. He ducked his head and nodded, shuffling after Leo towards the breakfast spread. 

“Excuse me,” a pretentious male voice said. 

I turned and saw a member of the hotel staff. His shirt had his title embroidered on the chest. He was a manager. I side-stepped. “Go ahead,” I said, pretending I didn’t know what he wanted. 

The manager smiled as though I was adorable. “Where is your legal guardian?”

My legal guardian? Well one of them was a few blocks from here and the other was at the bottom of the ocean. “He’s upstairs. Sleeping off last night.” I offered an exasperated smile. “By the way, how do I tip the cleaning staff with a credit card?”

“There’s a form,” the manager said. 

“I’d like a copy of it please. They deserve the extra pay after…” I trailed off, unsure of how to finish that sentence. “After our stay.” 

The manager’s gaze flitted from my face to my neck. His expression did something funny. “Ah. I see.” 

Why was he looking at me like that? 

“I’ll get you a copy right away.” Then he turned heel and left. 

I blinked. Then shrugged. That was weird. I got my breakfast and we found a table away from everyone else. 

We were almost done eating when the manager returned. He handed me a piece of paper. Paper clipped to the top was a business card with the phone number for the police department. “Here you are, sir. I hope that you find it useful.” Then he walked away again.

The form looked correct but my eyes kept being drawn to the business card. The police department? Why would he give me this? 

“Brother,” Tyson said. He was sitting on my right side. “What happened to your neck?”

“My neck?” I touched it and felt the tenderness of a bruise beneath my fingers. “Oh! Uh, nothing. I just hit it on...the door knob,” I finished lamely. 

Thankfully, Tyson and Leo were both too young to actually know what a hickey was. They accepted my answer easily. 

I got up and threw the card with the phone number in the trash. Luke couldn’t be allowed to see that. After yesterday, I had no idea how he was going to be but I knew that nothing good would come from that card. Riptide could be used as an actual pen so I filled out the form. 

We finished our breakfast in relative peace, if you could call being glared at peaceful. By the time we cleaned our plates, even Leo had noticed the looks we were getting. 

Everyone needed showers but only Leo had clean clothes so only Leo got the privilege of being ushered into the shower. I explained how everything worked, gave him a few simple instructions, and left him to his own devices. At this point, I would call it a success if he managed to just rinse off the travel grime. 

It wasn’t clear how much of Leo’s memory was gone. The person he was before was clearly gone and he seemed to have trouble with remembering the words for some things. He could fix himself a plate and eat but could he remember how to shower on his own? Could he tie his shoes? I wasn’t even sure if he remembered how to read anything besides Greek. 

Tyson had taken up the pieces of the television remote and resumed working on his project. 

I sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, alternating between watching the sky and watching Tyson. “Tyson?” I asked after a while. 

“Yes?” Tyson asked without looking up. 

“Are you happy?” I asked. 

“Yes,” Tyson said in that easy way of his. 

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least I was doing something right. “Do you want to go clothes shopping with us when Luke gets up? I don’t know about you, but I could use a new outfit.” 

Tyson turned his head to smile at me. “Yes!” He said brightly. “New clothes are needed.” He grimaced down at his ripped, stained shirt. There was blood around the edges where the Sphinx had gotten him. 

Gods, no wonder the mortals had looked at us weird. No wonder that manager had given me a card for the police. 

When Leo got out of the shower, he and Tyson talked about their plans for the master bolt. I listened but it was too mechanical for me. Leo caught his bee and wound its wings to set it flying again, this time going counter-clockwise around the room. 

Tyson made a centaur out of the television remote and the rest of the lamp that Leo had destroyed. It didn’t do anything except stomp its little hooves but the fact that he could make something like that out of average hotel electronics was incredible all by itself. “Would run if I had tools,” Tyson said but he still seemed happy with the metal horse. 

“We’ll go tool shopping too,” I promised. Movement by the door caught my eye and I jumped to my feet. I was across the room in seconds, arms thrown around Luke’s neck. “Good morning,” I said. 

Luke looked like a zombie. He had dark circles around his eyes and he nibbled on a small square of ambrosia. He went rigid when I hugged him and for a second, I thought he’d shove me away. Slowly, his arm came around me. “Morning,” he mumbled around his cake. “Where are we going?” 

“Out for a supply run,” I said, outrageously pleased that he hadn’t pushed me away. After yesterday, I wasn’t sure where we stood but this seemed like a good sign. 

Luke went back into our room and started a pot of coffee. 

I followed him, butterflies in my stomach. Was he okay? Were we okay? 

Luke stared blankly at the coffee pot while it brewed his French vanilla roast. 

I studied him for a moment. If I let him, he’d probably withdraw. So I did the only natural thing; I wiggled my way into his arms. “Oh no,” I said before he could protest, wrapping my arms around his waist. “If I don’t get to sleep, you definitely don’t get to make coffee in peace.” 

Luke’s expression was pained as he searched my eyes. Then he dropped his face into my shoulder. It felt like all of the fight went out of him because he was hunched over and leaning most of his weight on me. “Okay,” he mumbled. 

I ran my hand through Luke’s hair, petting him like he was a big dog, hoping that it would soothe all of the things he worried over. 

Luke stole a car from the hotel next to ours and we brought Tyson and Leo clothes shopping with us. 

Leo couldn’t be persuaded to pick out clothes for himself. He just stared blankly at the racks of clothes. Shopping for Leo wasn’t a high priority; he had his suitcase full of clothes. 

Tyson, when told that he could pick out whatever he wanted, went hogwild. He found clothes in his size and tossed them into the cart. There didn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to his selections. The selections included a giant yellow raincoat, a lot of overalls, thick wooly socks, and t-shirts that had dad jokes written across the fronts. He could not be persuaded to buy a toothbrush. 

I picked out jeans and t-shirts, a couple of hoodies and a zip-up jacket, boxers, shoes and socks. They were all blue. Since I was physically twelve, all of my clothes came from the kids section and therefore they came with cool sea animal designs on them. This was okay with me. 

Luke looked between the selections my brother and me had thrown into the cart and sighed. “Must run in the family,” he said under his breath. The things he put into the cart were chosen with much more care. He got a couple of suits and matching ties, nice black jeans and dress shirts, cameo cargo pants and white tank tops, cargo shorts and v-neck t-shirts, and finally, black socks. No underwear but the man went commando all the time so that wasn’t a surprise to me. 

Watching Luke pick out his outfits - two of each - reminded me that Luke liked to live and dress in a more upscale style. He liked the fancier things in life, the luxury that had always been out of his reach. Even at his mother’s house, as beautiful as it was on the outside, Luke wasn’t given the luxury that should have been his. The inside of that house was in disarray. May Castellan did not clean the house, she did not go shopping. All she did was make cookies and koolaid in an endless loop for Luke. She was broken and it was only Hermes who kept her in the house rather than on the streets and supplied her with the ingredients to bake forever. 

I ran my finger over the edge of the Lotus Hotel and Casino credit card. With this, we could buy anything and go anywhere. We wouldn’t be bound by the chains of money. We could have a mansion made of solid sapphire with flakes of gold in the tap water, five hundred rooms and an indoor rollercoaster. We could have a hundred yachts that were far more impressive and luxurious than the Princess Andromeda. We could buy the entire herd of Apollo’s sacred cows and mail each one to a remote island in the middle of the ocean where Apollo would never get them back. 

Suddenly, I wanted to get rid of the card. Obviously, I didn’t because we needed it but the feeling was there. 

Our next stop was a home improvement store, where Leo and Tyson lost their shit. I mean that in the best possible way. There were tools everywhere and they loved every second of it, needed to look at every little thing. Between the two of them, they debated hotly about what was best to get and what was totally useless and what they wanted but didn’t really need. 

I had to remind them that we had unlimited money and they could get whatever they wanted. 

That ate up pretty much the whole day. 

The only good thing that came out of it was that Luke finally stopped glaring. The longer he spent around Tyson, the more Luke relaxed, though he still looked warily at my brother and kept me between himself and Tyson. 

After we dropped the kids and our loot off at the hotel, we went to the hardware store. It wasn’t a chain hardware store like where we got the tools; Luke took us to a mom and pop shop. They sold celestial bronze parts for everything from actual weapons to the kitchen sink to tiny little screws. The entire store glistened and gleamed with bronze. It took me a few minutes to realize that the store was lit solely by their products glowing. 

“Whoa,” I said, eyes huge as I looked around. 

At the counter was an elderly couple who looked exactly like the sort that would own this shop and post signs saying _‘no teenagers allowed’_. I couldn’t tell if they were mortal or not by their appearance but the hair on the back of my neck stood up. 

“Luke!” The old man said. “We heard that you defected.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Were his pupils slits? 

“We can’t help you, Luke, darling. Kronos’ orders,” the old woman chimed in, sounding awfully sad about it. 

Luke didn’t seem bothered. “I did desert Kronos but that’s neither here nor there.” He waved a hand nonchalantly. “I’d imagine you’re far more interested in my wallet than my loyalties.” 

A puff of smoke rose up from the old woman’s nose. It was a thin curl of blue, like a cigarette left to burn itself out in an ashtray. “If this gets back to Kronos -“

“Who's going to tell him? I don’t report to him anymore.” Luke raised an eyebrow, a challenge in his eyes. “Just sell us a few trinkets.” 

“Actually,” I cut in, “we’ll take it all. Your whole inventory.” 

“O-our whole inventory? That’s very expensive. How would you pay for it?” The old man asked. 

Luke looked at me curiously but shrugged. “You heard him. We’ll take everything.” He held up the lime green Lotus credit card. 

Even on this side of the country, monsters knew about it. “I’ve heard of them but never seen one…” the old man said. He had a greedy gleam in his eyes. 

The old woman looked at us closer. “They sort of look like the kids who blew up the casino.”

Luke and I said nothing but I offered a toothy smile. 

“Well, alright then.” The old man said. “But it isn’t all here. We have a warehouse.”

“Mail it to us,” Luke said. He filled out the paperwork and slid the card through the reader. 

The monster couple were very excited. They promised that we would get everything ASAP and they wouldn’t tell a soul about it. 

We picked out a few pieces that we wanted to bring back to the hotel with us. 

In the car, Luke turned to me. “I assume you have a plan for all that celestial bronze?” 

I looked out the window as he drove. “Kronos needs to get his weapons from somewhere. We just bought a pretty big supply of celestial bronze.”

“They’re the only store in the country that sells it,” Luke confirmed. 

“Lucky for us, then.” I put my feet up on the dash. “Some of it will go to Leo and Tyson so they can finish whatever it is they’re planning. And the rest is going to go to Camp, where we can make weapons.” I put my hand on Luke’s thigh. “Do you know anywhere we can buy steel in bulk?”

We stopped at a red light and Luke looked at me. “What are you planning?” His tone told me that he knew what I was planning. 

I shook my head. “We don’t know when Kronos will try to take Backbiter back, but it’s safe to assume he’s going to want his weapon of power.” 

“The forger dies,” Luke reminded me. “Who are you going to have forge your weapons?” 

I could read between his lines but I ignored him. “We need to get our hands on some Stygian iron weapons too.”

Luke growled, annoyed. “You can tell me, you know. I’m not going to run back to Kronos.”

I nodded. “I know. I trust you. But I haven’t finished working out the details.”

The tension melted out of Luke. “Okay.” We rode in silence for a few moments. “Stygian iron for the Di Angelos?”

“Yeah. Nico got a sword from the Underworld but I don’t know how or from who. Bianca died when she was twelve, before we even knew who her Godly parent was.” 

“You don’t want to go back to the Underworld, do you?” Luke asked.

I pulled a ski mask from my pocket. “I’ll have to return this before the solstice.”

Luke eyed the helm of darkness. “You didn’t ask the kids to boobytrap that one.”

“I have other plans for the Lord of the Dead,” I replied and put the ski mask back in my pocket. 

When I didn’t volunteer my plans, Luke said dryly, “Let me guess. They aren’t finalized.”

I drummed my fingers against his thigh. “Are we fighting?”

Luke shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I don’t want to tell you because I want you to have plausible deniability if I fail.” I reached into my pocket for the familiar feeling of Riptide. “Last time, I took the pacifist route. When I went into that lake, I wasn’t planning on coming back out, Luke.”

“Why are things different now?”

“Because I have nothing to lose and everything to win.” 

A beat of silence then, “What about all of us? Are we nothing?”

“That isn’t how I meant it.” I wrapped my arms around myself and drew my knees up to my chest. “What I meant is that you’ve been dead for four years. You killed yourself on my sixteenth birthday. And you were right last night, _you_ aren’t...the other Luke. The one I knew before.” I bit my lip. “Everyone's the same, but they’re also..._not._” I ran a hand through my hair. “Take Nico for example. He’s more or less the same annoying ten-year-old that I rescued from a military boarding school but he isn’t going to grow into the man that I knew. That Nico is gone and even if I share my memories with him, it isn’t going to be the same. He won’t _be_ the same Nico that I knew.” 

Until I said the words out loud, I didn’t realize that they were true. Even if my plan went imperfectly, I was _never_ going to see anyone that I left behind. They were all going to grow into different people. My heart ached. “The point being, one way or another, I’ve already lost everyone I care about.” To my surprise, I was suddenly crying. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks. 

Luke pulled the car over to the curb and got out. He left the keys in the ignition. 

I sat, dumbfounded, and watched his blurry image walk into a building. Was he coming back? I cried in the car and wiped my tears on my shirt, which only got my shirt wet and didn’t stop my tears from falling. 

Luke came back a few minutes later and handed me something cool and blue. 

It was a cup of blue ice cream. 

I blinked and looked down and got tears in my ice cream. 

“You’re supposed to eat it, not cry in it,” Luke said sagely. He rolled the truck windows down to let in the breeze and leaned back in his seat. He had ice cream too but his wasn’t blue. It was pink and there were strawberries mixed in. 

“You’re handling this really well,” I said and wiped my face with a dry spot of my shirt.

“Percy, I’m the oldest kid at Camp and leader of the reject cabin. I don’t think there’s a kid there that hasn’t cried to me or at me or around me at least once,” Luke said patiently. He ate his ice cream. 

“Do you always buy them ice cream?” I asked. My voice was still watery with emotion. 

“Nope,” Luke answered. “Just you.”

I ate my ice cream. It tasted like cotton candy. “Are we still fighting?”

“Were we fighting?” Luke asked. 

“I don’t know. I never had a real fight with my ex girlfriend,” I frowned. “Whenever we disagreed on something, we’d either do it her way or I’d do things my way. If I was wrong, she’d bail me out and I’d concede defeat and if I was right then she’d say _‘that was stupid! You got lucky, seaweed brain.’_” 

“Sounds unhealthy,” he said and chewed on a strawberry. 

I rubbed at my eyes again. “Speaking of unhealthy. You can’t be getting drunk.” 

Luke hummed noncommittally and didn’t look at me. His leg bounced. 

“Seriously. I need you functioning,” I pressed. 

“I know,” Luke scowled into his ice cream. “Did you know that you’re a pain in my ass?”

I smiled. 

“Oh please.” Luke rolled his eyes. “Your dick is too small to be a pain in anyone’s ass.” 

My jaw dropped. “Wow,” I said. My face was hot with embarrassment. It’s not like I didn’t already know but did Luke have to point it out? “Well. You better enjoy it while you can because I’m not going to stay this small forever.” 

“Thank the Gods,” Luke muttered. He drove us back to the hotel. 

We could hear the power tools from the elevator. On one hand, it meant that the kids were working on their project. On the other, it meant that hotel staff and guests were even more pissed off with us than they’d been before. 

The manager from before stood outside of the kid’s door. He turned to us when we approached and narrowed his eyes. “_What_ are they doing in there?” He demanded. “They won’t open the door.”

I was proud of Leo and Tyson for obeying my order to not open the door for anyone. 

“We’ll pay for any damages,” Luke said as he produced the key. The door opened for him. 

The noise got significantly louder.

I took the paper from earlier out of my pocket and handed it to the man. “That’s for the cleaning staff. Just charge us for...the rest.”

The man’s eyes nearly bugged out of his skull when he saw the numbers. “You’re disrupting the other guests,” he said, suddenly doubtful that he should be questioning us. 

“We’ll pay to put them in different rooms,” I said with a glance at Luke. 

Luke set the box of celestial bronze plates that he was carrying onto the dresser. Luke shrugged; he didn’t care one way or another. It wasn’t like we were going to run out of funds.

“And we’ll be gone tomorrow,” I added, even though I had no idea where we were going to go tomorrow. I didn’t want to stay here any longer than tonight. 

The manager looked to Luke. 

Luke nodded. 

“Well, I suppose,” the manager said. He left, staring at the form and mumbling to himself. 

Tyson ran over to us, footsteps shaking the floor. “We didn’t open the door!” He said proudly. 

Luke stumbled backwards into me in his haste to get away from Tyson. He grabbed me and firmly put me between him and my brother. Then he backed out of the room and closed the door. The other door, the one that led to our room, opened and closed. 

Was he going to do that every time we ran into a cyclops? 

“Good job, Tyson,” I said and patted him on the head. 

Leo trailed after Tyson. “I locked the door,” he offered and looked at me expectantly. 

I patted him on the head too. “Good job, Leo.” I wanted to stay with them but honestly, it was way too loud for me and they were entertained with their project now that they had tools and some celestial bronze. Besides, I couldn’t resist the pull of Luke’s presence. I went into our room and eased the door so that it was open only the slimmest of cracks. 

It was dark in our room, the curtains drawn over the window. Luke sat on the bed with his back to me, head in his hands. 

My heart ached to look at him. I walked around to his side of the bed and stopped in front of him, knelt so that I could try to see his face. “Luke? Are you okay?” I kept my voice soft. 

Without lifting his face, Luke shook his head. “Your,” Luke’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat, started over, “Your brother stresses me out.” 

I inched forward until my knees were touching the tips of his sneakers. “I know. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t see Luke’s face, so I looked away, stared at the lines of the side table. “If I didn’t need him, I wouldn’t have gotten him,” I whispered and hoped Tyson didn’t overhear this. “It’s June sixth. Can you handle a couple more weeks with him around? Maybe even less, depending on how fast they work.” 

Luke shifted his feet so that they weren’t touching me anymore. He was silent.

I waited patiently. There was nowhere else I had to be but right here. 

Luke took a shuddering breath, all uneven and wet. Was he crying? 

I couldn’t bring myself to lift my eyes to find out. 

The minutes ticked by, punctuated by Luke’s shuddering, uneven breaths. From the other room, came the sounds of the kids working on grinding the celestial bronze plates into a fine, glittery dust. It was loud but surprisingly easy to tune out when I was listening for every change in Luke’s breathing. 

Slowly, Luke slid off the edge of the bed and onto the floor, legs on either side of me. I got the barest glimpse of his face, eyes rimmed red and cheeks wet, when he reached for me. He pulled me to him, pressed his face into my chest. Another wet breath, closer to a sob. 

I draped one arm over Luke’s shoulders and ran my other hand through his short hair. It reminded me of earlier, which seemed like a long time ago now that the sun was setting and casting longer shadows in our room. What did mom do when I was upset? Held me and made me blue food. Well, I didn’t have any food but I could hold Luke. 

We spent the rest of the day in bed, not sleeping. 

He kept his face hidden, pressed against my body, even after he stopped crying. 

I stroked his hair and planted kisses in it. My heart hurt for Luke; I wasn’t sure what was wrong but I was almost positive that it was my fault. And to be honest, I was too afraid to ask. My only hope was that Luke would tell me his woes himself but so far, he hadn’t said so much as a single word.

I didn’t notice it when the power tools went silent. Leo was the one who, sometime later, cautiously crept into our room. “Percy? We’re hungry,” he whispered.

“Okay,” I whispered back. There was no need to whisper. Luke was awake. “I’ll order room service, alright?” I reached around for the phone.

A few minutes later, and food was on the way for the kids. They opened their door at my permission but nearly shut it on the poor person’s hand. Mentally, I made a note to make sure that that person also received extra pay. 

“Do you want something to eat?” I whispered to Luke. 

Luke shook his head, held me tighter as though I was going to go somewhere. 

“Okay.” I’d had plenty of time to think and plan my next move. So I whispered, “I want to see my mom. Will you come home with me?” 

I could feel Luke’s hesitation in the way his breath caught. A few moments later he nodded. Then, the tears started to fall again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luke's speed was inspired by the fact that apparently he can run on air.
> 
> By the by, while there have admittedly been a lot of canon things that I got wrong or missed, Luke's age is not one of them. He is 19 in the Lightning Thief. Here's the passage: "A guy who was a little older than the rest of the campers. [ ...] The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool." And in a completely unrelated note, I can read the comments you add to the bookmarks you make. 
> 
> Speaking of ages, though, I got Ethan's wrong. He's only a year older than Percy but I thought he was around 19 when he died. So upon that startling revelation, I went and checked the ages of the other campers and I've come to the conclusion that Luke is the oldest camper, full stop. Luke's options for a mate are people who are 6+ years younger than him, a horse, a god, or a monster. Which explains a lot of his actions, tbh. *side eyes Kelli* Thalia was there for a hot minute but still wasn't the ideal mate: 15/16 when she should have been 18 and then she became a Hunter of Artemis. RIP Luke.


	11. My Boyfriend Meets My Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Luke hit a couple of big life mile stones in one week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't really done this yet, but here's your warning: this chapter contains mentions of child abuse, homophobic slurs, etc.
> 
> Also, because someone asked, if it wasn't clear, the lotus flower is a narcotic and it erases memory. The narcotic effects are temporary. The memory erasure is not. Leo is not spending the rest of his life high as balls. No need to worry about that. 
> 
> Oh, and if at any point you're like "what the fuck, Robin, I don't remember this happening" all I've got to say is it happened in Luke's chapter.

The thunderstorm didn’t immediately tip me off to the fact that today was going to be a bad day. 

Luke handing me the keys to the car and letting me drive to my mom’s apartment, on the other hand, was a sure sign that things were bad and going to get worse. After handing me the keys, Luke slunk around the car and got into the passenger's seat. When he slouched down, his black leather jacket creaked. Luke looked like a very, very sad badass in his leather jacket, blue v-neck t-shirt, and black jeans. 

I drove very carefully, making sure to obey all traffic laws so that we didn’t get pulled over. The roads were wet with rain, puddles growing in the gutters and spreading towards the middle of the road. I parked in the complex and sat, engine running, looking for some sign that Gabe was home and alive. When I was young, I used to use Gabe’s camaro as an indicator but that was totaled beyond repair. 

We sat in the parking lot long enough for Luke to reach over and take my hand. 

I squeezed his hand and offered up a small smile. “Okay,” I sighed. “Let’s do this.” I turned off the car. 

Neither of us moved. The rain drummed on the car. 

“You can wait in the car if you want,” I offered, even though I wanted him to meet my mom. Officially meet her. “I think she’ll like you. I want you to meet her. But…if you don’t want to…” 

“What happened last time you were here?” Luke asked. 

“It was the night I came to Camp. I opened the door and Gabe was about to hit mom. I punched him in the back of the head. Grover broke his nose.”

“Grover?”

“Gabe was going to hit me.” I hoped with every fiber of my being that my stepdad was dead, turned to stone and out of our lives. I hoped that my mom would be alone in our apartment, that the windows would be open so that the breeze could carry away Gabe’s awful scent. 

But I wasn’t sure that this would be the case. 

Luke sighed. “We don’t have to go up,” he suggested cautiously. 

I swallowed. “I need to.” 

Luke got out of the car, stepped into the pouring rain. His blond hair was immediately darkened and plastered to his forehead. He gave me an expectant look.

I couldn’t just leave him out there alone. I got out of the car. The rain was cold and felt like nails pricking my skin. Hurriedly, I took Luke’s hand and we ran for the awning. I couldn’t seem to let go of his hand as I led the way up the stairs. 

What if Gabe was in there?

What if he hurt mom? 

What if mom wasn’t there? 

When we got to my door, I let go of Luke’s hand and reached into my pocket for the house key. It wasn’t there. Sometime along the way, I had lost it. My anxiety shot up, heart thumping and hands going cold. I closed my eyes and tried to listen for sounds over the drumming rain. I couldn’t hear anything. “Luke, could you? I lost my key.” 

Luke barely had to touch the door before the lock clicked open for him. His expression had settled into something carefully blank, carefully neutral. 

I twisted the knob and pushed open the door. 

Imagine for a moment that you’re a hardworking twenty-year-old man stuck in the body of your twelve-year-old self. You’ve accomplished so many great things in your double lifetimes. For the most part, everything has gone according to plan. You’ve even managed to get the guy of your dreams (more or less) and you’re ninety percent sure that he isn’t going to die on your sixteenth birthday. 

Things aren’t great because they’re never great but they’re going okay. Certainly better than the first time you did this. 

And yet.

When you bring your boyfriend home to your mother’s apartment, you open the door to the disgusting smell of cigars, booze, and body odor. All the bad childhood memories come flooding in. And what’s more than that? A deep, visceral shame comes in with the tide of unpleasant memories. Because now your boyfriend knows what a badass you are and he believes in you but here sat the guy who abused you for years. After you were supposed to have killed him. 

Yeah. Not a great picture that's forming in your mind, is it? 

Smelly Gabe sat at the foldout table in our living room, playing cards with two of his equally gross friends. One was the building’s superintendent and his eyes flashed with recognition when he saw me. The other was a man who owned a used car dealership where he sold unsafe cars to desperately poor people. 

I shoved the initial nausea away. “Mom! I’m home!” I called and walked further into the house. I slunk past Gabe. “Gabe, you’ve got a package here.” 

Gabe didn’t look up from his cards. “You and your mother, going on and on about that package. I’ll get to it when I get to it.” 

Or I would get to it first. 

I felt bad for leaving mom alone with Gabe for so long. But I had hoped that Gabe would open the package. Gods, why didn’t he just open the fucking package? 

Mom met me coming out of the kitchen. “Percy!” She hugged me tight. 

For a few seconds, everything was alright. 

Gabe, of course, had to ruin that. “Don’t coddle him, Sally. That little shit ran away from school and he’s been a terror across the country.” Gabe finally looked up from his cards, giving me a narrow, beady-eyed glare. “You crashed my car. You aren’t welcome in this house.” 

“Good thing we aren’t in a house,” I growled back. My feet were cold now, adrenaline coursing through my veins. 

Gabe’s fat lip curled in a snarl. “Don’t take that tone with me, you stupid shit. I’m - “ and then Gabe paused, eyes flickering away from me. “Who the hell is that?” 

Luke stood just inside the doorway, hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a greaser in need of a shave. His eyes were a cool blue, expression equally disinterested and unimpressed with what he saw in the apartment. Luke gave off the presence that he wasn’t so much standing in the doorway ready to bolt but that he was going to stop anyone else from leaving the apartment, should they dare try. He looked like the kind of kid who carried a switchblade. And he _did_ carry a switchblade. 

Mom tapped a finger to her chin in thought. “It was Luke, right?” 

Luke nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He ignored Gabe entirely. I remembered that he’d run away from home at nine years old. He was probably wondering why I didn’t do the same. 

Before mom could ask anymore questions, Gabe spoke up again. “What’s with his face?” 

“What business is it of yours, Ugly?” I spat back. Riptide wouldn’t do anything against a mortal but I wished it would.

“You got any money?” Gabe asked, seemingly out of the blue. 

That threw me off guard. “Why would I have money?”

“Don’t tell me you’re spreading your legs for him for free,” Gabe said, voice managing to sound both mean and surprised. He jerked his double chin in Luke’s direction. 

Mom gasped.

I thought of Luke’s cock between my thighs, just a brief flash of remembered sensation, and a flush of embarrassment rushed through me. How dare he? I heard the roar of the ocean in my ears. I was going to kill this bastard, I really was, even if I had to use my fists to do it.

Nothing about Luke had changed unless you knew what to look for. His sharp, attentive eyes suddenly became completely blank. 

The other men at the poker table shifted uncomfortably. They looked like they wanted to bolt for the door but Luke was blocking the only easy exit. “Gabe,” one of them muttered under his breath. 

“You won’t live long enough to regret that,” I said. It felt like someone else was saying it, like it was another person’s mouth forming to say those words. 

I felt Luke move towards me. 

Gabe got to his feet, cards forgotten. “You dumb shit. Who are you to talk to me like that? You’re nothing but a stupid, spoiled faggot whore.” He had that look in his eyes that meant he was going to hit me. “You think you can threaten _me?_”

Well, bring it on. 

Gabe pulled back his fist. 

Luke’s hand came up to cover my eyes and he pulled me back against his chest. 

And Gabe immediately turned to stone. I could hear the stone taking over flesh, even though I couldn’t see it. 

“It’s safe to look, boys,” mom said after a few moments. 

Luke pulled his hand from my eyes. 

The other two men at the card table also turned to stone. The statue that was Gabe Ugliano was even uglier with his fist raised than when he’d just been playing poker. I wasn’t sure mom would be able to sell it. Then again, people and Gods bought a lot of weird statues so it was probably somebody’s cup of tea. 

I resisted the urge to look in mom’s direction. Instead, I reached back for Luke and grabbed his wrist. He was still flesh and blood to my relief, but every muscle was tense. I wanted to bury my face in his neck, I wanted to rub myself all over him until I didn’t smell like Smelly Gabe anymore. “Nice work, mom,” my voice was distinctly flat, even to my own ears. I needed to find out how Luke was doing. I swear to the Gods that if Gabe unraveled all of the progress I’d made with Luke... 

Mom wrapped her arms around me, drew me away from Luke. Her hands smelled reptilian, like Medusa. “Are you okay, Percy?” 

“I’m fine mom. Not a scratch on me.” I hugged her back. My limbs felt cold still. I was still itching for a fight, adrenaline still pumping through my body. 

Something wet hit my shoulder and I realized she was crying. “I’m so sorry, Percy.”

I hugged her tighter. “It’s okay, mom. He’s never going to hit us again. And you can sell your new statues to pay for college. Just like you always wanted.” With the unlimited Lotus Hotel and Casino credit card in my pocket, I could pay for mom’s college for her. But, I didn’t think she would let me. 

Mom wiped her eyes and smiled lovingly at me. “How did I get so lucky to have you?” Before I could answer, mom’s gaze flickered over my shoulder. 

I twisted out of her grasp to see Luke sheathing Backbiter. He was tense, strung tight, expression grim. His eyes were wide with panic, pupils constricted to narrow black dots. He eyed my mom like she might be a threat too. 

I reached on my tiptoes to run my hand through his hair. I wanted him to wrap me in his arms and carry me away, back to our hotel where we could shower off the smell of Gabe and lay in bed all day. 

Luke let me pet him twice and then shook me off. “That was a bit late.” His tension bled into his voice. 

“Better late than never.” I frowned as I searched his face. I could practically hear Luke’s thoughts echoing what Gabe had said. I should have let Luke stay in the car. “I thought for sure he would open it.” 

“Hi, Luke,” mom said. “We didn’t really get to talk the last time I saw you. I’m Sally.” She held out her hand to him.

Luke hesitated, then shook it. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” His voice hadn’t lost any of the tension but on top of that he sounded shy too. I’ve never known Luke to be shy about anything. 

Mom smiled. “Just call me Sally, dear.” She looked between the two of us. Her eyes were sharp and knowing but she wisely kept her conclusions to herself. “Are you boys hungry?” 

“I could eat,” I said, even though I felt so sick that I never wanted to eat again. 

We followed mom into the kitchen, where dinner was partially made. She washed her hands thoroughly. 

Behind my mom’s back, I snaked an arm around Luke’s waist. He still looked like he wanted to bolt. I looked up at him, a question in my eyes. 

Luke carefully pulled my arm from around him and stepped away to put some distance between us. He didn’t look me in the eye. 

By the time mom turned around again, we were a respectable three feet apart. “Percy, Luke, maybe you two could go open up a few windows?” 

We walked throughout the apartment, opening windows. With mom so close, I didn’t want to talk to Luke yet. When we got to the other side of the apartment, opening the bedroom window, I slipped my hand into Luke’s hand. It turned out that I didn’t know what to say, even out of hearing range. I was worried about causing another breakdown and that couldn’t be a thing right now. Luke would have to save it for a few days. I kissed Luke’s knuckles then we left the bedroom. 

Dinner was well on its way. Mom glanced up as we entered the kitchen. “Percy, set the table, please.” 

I did as she asked and urged Luke into a chair. 

“I saw Luke in California. Did you two meet there or…?”

“Nah,” I said. “He’s from Camp Half-Blood.” 

“Oh,” mom said. She turned to look at Luke. “Who’s your parent, Luke?”

“Hermes,” Luke answered, barely able to meet her eye. 

“The god of merchants,” mom said approvingly and turned back to the stove. That wasn’t how most people knew Hermes. “How is the Quest going?”

“Well, we haven’t died yet,” I said as I looked in the fridge for something to drink. Gabe’s beers were in there but I ignored them and got two sodas out instead. I couldn’t stand the idea of Luke tasting like Gabe. My stomach churned again. “We’re returning, um, the god of thunder’s master bolt to him.” 

“Where is it?”

“With our friends,” I said and sat down beside Luke. 

“Percy, you know that Quests are important. You can’t just stop in to see your mother while you’re on them,” mom scolded me gently. 

“I know, mom,” I said. “We kind of need a place to stay tonight though. Is it okay if all four of us crash here?”

“Four of you?” Mom repeated softly. Mom knew all of the Greek myths and legends. Once she realized she was pregnant with me, she got her hands on every available source of information on the subject. That was how she chose my name; because Perseus was one of the only Greek Heroes that didn’t meet an awful fate. On the flip side of that, though, it meant that mom knew four was not a good number for a Quest. “Yes, dear, that will be alright.”

I couldn’t help but inch my foot closer to Luke so that our toes were touching. 

Luke shifted his foot away. He sat perfectly still but I could tell that he was freaking out. Taking in the scene, it reminded me a lot of how May Castellan’s house had been when Nico and I went to see her. Endlessly baking, the house trashed, a mother with clear sight. 

“Luke,” I said softly and pressed the car keys into his hand. “Why don’t you go get the kids real quick and they can eat with us?”

Luke nodded, seemingly glad for the excuse to leave. “I’ll be back soon.” His blue eyes were swimming with too many emotions to name. Then he was gone.

It was just me and mom in the kitchen. 

“What happened to your arms, dear?” Mom asked me. 

I looked down at my scars. I’d forgotten that they were there. They already felt like a normal part of me. “Cut them up on some magical netting while doing a job for a God.” 

Mom hummed disapprovingly. While dinner was cooking, mom poured herself some tea and sat down at the kitchen table with me. “Why don’t you tell me about Luke, Percy? I’d like to know him.” 

I hesitated and looked down at the soda can in my hands. It was easier to look at that than at mom. I didn’t want to lie but I also didn’t want to tell her the whole truth. “What do you want to know?” I asked finally. 

“Who is his other parent?” 

That wasn’t the question I thought she’d start with but I was on to her. Mom wanted to lure me into a false sense of security. “May Castellan. She’s from Connecticut and she’s...not well.” 

Mom’s expression turned sad. “Oh my,” she murmured. “Does Luke live with her?” 

“No. He’s a year-rounder at Camp. Has been since he arrived there,” I said. I hoped I was volunteering enough information that I could get away with skipping some of the details. Sitting here with my mom, it was painfully clear to me that I could have had Luke’s fate, if my mom had tried to host the Oracle. 

“What does he do?” Mom asked, stirring sugar cubes into her tea. 

“He’s the sword fighting instructor. Best swordsman in three hundred years,” I said and couldn’t help the way my pride shone through in my voice. Yes, that was my title too. But Luke had it first and he could keep it, as far as I was concerned. Luke needed some glory. 

“Does he get paid for it?”

I blinked. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.” Gods, no wonder Luke was pissed. He had to babysit twenty kids twenty-four-seven and then teach the whole Camp how to sword fight and he didn’t even get paid for it. He didn’t even get a room in the Big House, he was stuck in the worst Cabin. 

Mom frowned briefly. “Does he train you?” 

“Well yeah,” I said. “He trains the whole Camp.” 

She looked at the stove and got up to tend to dinner. “How old is he?” 

Ah. There it was. “Nineteen,” I said warily and watched her back carefully. I couldn’t see her face but I could read the tension in her shoulders. 

“Nineteen and they don’t pay him?” Mom asked over her shoulder. 

"Not as far as I’m aware. Gods don’t like to pay demigods for...anything,” I said. My foot bounced as I anxiously waited for the other shoe to drop. 

“Does he have a girlfriend?” 

We were getting closer to that shoe dropping. 

“No,” I said and took a nervous swig of my coke. 

“A boyfriend?” Mom guessed. She was cool with queerness so that wasn’t what I was worried about. 

“Yes,” I said. My hands were cold again, palms sweaty. Mom couldn’t really stop me from seeing Luke, no matter what she thought. No one could. But I didn’t want to disappoint her, I didn’t want to worry her. I wanted her to like Luke. 

Mom hummed. She kept her back to me. “Have you found a special someone?” Mom asked, voice light. 

“I found a whole camp full of special people,” I said evasively and used finger quotes to drive the point home. 

Mom gave me a flat look over her shoulder that I recognized as an expression frequently on my own face.

I wanted to yell at her, which was a new feeling for me. I wanted to say, _‘just ask me if I’m fucking him. Just ask me if I’m spreading my legs for him, ask me if Gabe was right.’_ But I didn’t. Because if I said that then she wouldn’t have to ask me. She would know. 

Mom wouldn’t ask, either. Not directly. Because she was used to not asking. Not asking where the bruises went. Not asking where the money came from. If mom didn’t ask about the things she couldn’t see but suspected then she wouldn’t have to have a definitive answer. 

The year that I lost my grip on sanity, the year that I said _‘I’m not doing this anymore’_ and went into the lake, was also the year that mom and I sat down to talk. Eight years after the abuse ended, we finally talked about it. 

By all accounts, it was worse than I’d thought. When you’re twelve, some things don’t occur to you. Like the fact that your mom’s husband will want to have sex with her whether she wanted to or not. He hit her, he raped her, he took her money, he controlled every aspect of mom’s life. 

Then there was what Gabe did to me. I didn’t even remember everything he’d done to me, my brain blocked most of it out like it had blocked out the monsters that hunted me during my childhood. But some things I could tell her, like that he basically mugged me every time I was home to take my money, and some things she told me. Well. One thing, in particular. She told me that, after turning Gabe to stone, she had found pictures on the computer. Gabe had been selling pictures of me - unconscious, naked, and bruised - to online perverts to fund his poker games while I was at school and couldn’t supply him with money from my summer jobs. 

Which reminded me, I needed to do something about that computer before mom found what was on it. 

A knock on the door startled both of us. “I got it,” I said and jumped up from my chair so fast that I nearly spilled my coke. 

It was Luke, with Leo and Tyson flanking him. They were carrying our bags, the important ones. Luke ruffled my hair as he walked by me. “Where can we put these?” 

“On the floor by the couch,” I said. My body sang with his nearness. I wanted to pull Luke into a hug, tuck my head beneath his chin, and just let go of everything I was holding inside. 

Mom came out of the kitchen to see the new arrivals. “Oh,” she said when she saw Leo and Tyson. I’m not sure which one surprised her more; the tiny little demigod, far too young to be out on a Quest, or the cyclops. 

Once the bags had been put down and everyone was in the living room, I said, “Tyson, Leo, this is my mom. Her name is Sally.” 

“Brother’s mom?” Tyson blushed as he waved at my mom. “Hi, Ms. Sally,” he said bashfully.

“Tyson is my half brother. On dad’s side,” I explained before mom could ask. 

She looked only faintly surprised but everyone knew who produced the most cyclopsis. “It’s nice to meet you, Tyson.” 

“I’m Leo,” Leo said proudly. He glanced at me to make sure that he’d pleased me. 

I gave him a big smile and a thumbs up. 

“Who is your parent, Leo?” Mom asked. 

Silence greeted her question. 

“Mrs. Jackson, I think something is burning.” Luke said. 

“Oh! My biscuits!” Mom hurried back into the kitchen. 

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief and glanced at Luke. 

Luke’s expression was blank but his eyes reflected my concern. 

Dinner with mom went okay. We managed to avoid telling her about the master bolt, about Leo’s parentage, and about Luke being my boyfriend. Those were all wins. 

After dinner, mom asked Tyson and Luke to help her move the statues out of the way so that she could set up spots on the floor for the kids to sleep. There was more space in the living room than there was in my bedroom. “You can have the couch, Luke. The kids can sleep on the floor. And Percy has his own room, of course.” 

Of course. 

I may or may not have orchestrated it so that while they were moving the statues out of the way, the hard drive of the computer got completely crushed beneath a falling statue. 

Mom handled the loss of the computer rather well, considering that she was never allowed on it anyway while Gabe had been alive. She didn’t suspect that I’d made sure the accident would occur. We cleaned up the living room a little, tossing out beer cans and cigar butts and old junk food wrappers. Mom gave the living room a quick vacuum. 

“Bed time,” mom announced when we were done. After the kids were settled in nests of spare blankets and pillows, and Luke had been given a throw blanket to use while he slept on the couch, mom put her hand on my shoulder and actually walked me to my room. 

I shut the door on her and turned to my bed. There was junk all over it, all over the whole room, really. I tossed it all in a corner and striped the sheets off my bed. Then I put the spare sheets on and laid in bed fully dressed. 

I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t _want_ to sleep without Luke beside me. Even with the windows open, I could still smell Gabe in my room, his sweaty stench, his cigars and booze scent. My stomach rolled. I lay on my back with my hands at my sides. They felt cold and tingly and my chest was fluttering. 

A few hours later my door opened and then closed. There was no one there. I stared at the empty space and curled my fingers around Riptide. 

“It’s just me, puppy,” Luke’s voice was a soft murmur. Annabeth’s cap. I’d forgotten that Luke had it. 

A whine slipped past my lips unbidden. I held out my arms for him. 

I felt the air shift when Luke moved towards me. 

The bed next to me dipped with the presence of his knee. 

I guessed where he was and slowly reached up to wrap my arms around his neck. I pulled him down onto me and pursed my lips for a kiss. 

Luke presented me with his scruffy cheek to kiss. It was strange not being able to see Luke as he stretched out on top of me. His arms were bracketed around my head and he nuzzled me, slowly rubbing his cheek against mine. 

It was exactly what I wanted, what I’d been craving since we walked into this disgusting hellhole. I couldn’t see him because he still hadn’t taken the cap off so I lay still, arms around his neck, letting him rub his scent back into my skin. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t think he’d be alive.” 

Luke shifted and one hand came to squeeze my hip. It made my heart leap in my chest. I didn’t know where he would be, what he would do next. Maybe we shouldn’t give the cap back to Annabeth. “It isn’t your fault,” Luke murmured. A few minutes later, he added, “I thought your mom was going to turn me to stone.”

I blinked in surprise. “My mom isn’t like that.” I wished I could see Luke’s face but it was better for him to keep the cap on. Just in case. 

“You know what this has to look like,” Luke said, voice heavy with guilt. “Her twelve year old son, traveling across the country with a grown man, your complete inability to hide how smitten you are with me.” 

Sometimes I forgot how young I looked. But when I was reminded, I always remembered that Luke would be blamed and shamed because he looked older than me. And he was right: mom thought I was a child. Luke could pass as younger than he was when he was clean shaven but with facial hair, he looked every bit an adult. 

Luke pressed a finger into my neck. “You didn’t heal that before we came over.” 

The hickie. I’d forgotten about it. Shit. Shit. No wonder mom didn’t ask. She already knew. Mom just wanted to know what kind of guy her son was fucking. I clawed at Luke’s back, felt his skin beneath my nails and knew he would have scratches to show for my efforts. “Don’t you dare leave me, Luke Castellan,” I whispered fiercely and felt tears in my eyes. 

Luke kissed my forehead. “I have to be back on the couch before your mom gets up,” he whispered.

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it.” 

Luke didn’t try to stop me from marking his skin up. He just slowly, deliberately rubbed his face against mine. He put his lips to my neck and breathed me in. “I swore I wouldn’t leave you,” he said softly.

I could feel the vibrations of his words against my neck and the rabbit-fast pulse of his heart beating against mine. That wasn’t what he swore, not exactly, but if he considered it to be part of his vow then the River Styx probably would too. 

Luke slid his arms around me, making my back arch, holding me close to his chest, and it was so much like the night in the hotel that I had deja vu. 

My legs fell open on either side of Luke’s body. I heard Gabe’s voice in my head. 

_‘Don’t tell me you’re spreading your legs for him for free.’_

Luke tensed up immediately. I didn’t have to see Luke’s face to know he was thinking of it too. 

I raked my nails up the length of his spine again, clawed at him and held him close to me. It was important that there was no space between us. 

Luke hissed between his teeth. “Percy,” he said in a tone that meant he was about to say something about how I was too young for him. 

“Don’t. Please.” I nuzzled my face into his neck and sank my nails deep into his skin. “Please don’t, Luke.” I wanted to see his face. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted Luke to fuck me right now. “I’m old enough to know what I want and consent so please don’t.” 

Luke was probably traumatized. Retraumatized. Would have to acclimate all over again. We were basically half a step up from square one all because of Gabe. I should have killed him. I should have killed him the night I left for Camp Half-Blood. 

“Please,” I whispered.

“Okay. But we are not,” Luke murmured against my neck, the side without the scar, “doing this in your mom’s house.” 

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his lips against my skin. That was a fair stipulation. “Luke,” I whispered. “If...if we weren’t here…” 

“A bed,” Luke said. “Behind a door with a lock.” We’d been in several of those but Luke had been being so good then. He really was something of a saint considering that I propositioned him every chance I got. Admittedly, most of those times were with other people nearby. I realized that Luke was a fiercely private person, that he valued privacy. Sure, he may have fucked Ethan in the woods where the dryads could see, but at Camp it was hard to come by actual privacy and the alternative was to have some kid stumble upon them. Like Lacy had stumbled upon us in the strawberry fields. The Aphrodite kids could sniff out sex and attraction like a shark could smell blood in the water. 

“Okay,” I agreed. 

Luke pulled my arms from around his neck and rolled us onto our sides. He slotted himself against my back, strong arms holding me close. 

I distracted myself with practical things like where Luke and I could have sex in private. We weren’t ready to go back to Camp Half-Blood yet but I also didn’t want to spend the rest of the month with my mom. Especially not since Leo and Tyson would be with us. We could use the unlimited credit card to pay for hotel rooms the entire time but I was sick of that and they were temporary. Plus, we’d just been kicked out of one of them. 

What we needed - what all of our group needed - was a place a little remote. A place we could lay our shit down without worrying about the maid coming in and cutting herself. Somewhere we could defend if we needed to. It would have to be by the ocean. A house by the ocean… Montauk. The beach house that mom and I visited every summer. 

The beach house was small and unassuming. It was tucked away in between the sand dunes and the ocean. Not many people were nearby, even in the summer on season. There was a bedroom with a lock on the door, functioning utilities, a pullout couch in the living room.

_Yeah,_ I thought, _that’s a good spot._

I laced my fingers through Luke’s and brought his hand up to kiss the back of it. “Okay,” I whispered again. 

Luke and I didn’t sleep. We just laid together until dawn approached. Then Luke kissed my forehead and left to go lay on the couch until mom got up. 

Mom and I didn’t own the beach house in Montauk. She rented it a few days out of the summer. Getting the owner’s information was surprisingly easy. Mom kept their information in the contact book in her purse. All I had to do was get into her purse while she was in the bathroom and quickly write down the number. 

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I asked Luke.

Luke was happy to find an excuse to get out of the apartment and away from my mother. “Sure.”

We left Leo and Tyson at the apartment to continue working on their projects. We walked down the street without holding hands, even though I really wanted to. I led the way to the library, which held the nearest payphones. Once there, I dialed the number and spoke to the person who answered. By the time the conversation was over, they’d agreed to meet with us today. 

“I need you to sign some things,” I told Luke as we sat among the stacks of library shelves. I sat on Luke’s lap and tried to ignore the way I could still smell Gabe on both of us. 

“Why?” Luke asked. He ran a hand through my hair, over and over again, making it stick up on one side. 

“I’m buying a house,” I answered. 

“You?” Luke raised an eyebrow. 

“Well, technically, you are.” I amended. 

Talking the people who owned the beach house into selling it to us was outrageously easy. I was good at talking fast and between Luke and I, the owners agreed to sell to us - Luke - within the hour. Thanks to our unlimited funds, we were able to push everything through. By the end of the day, the beach house was ours. 

Luke signed on the dotted line in spidery handwriting. He added the date; June tenth. 

Just ten days until I made my way back into the Underworld. Just eleven days until the summer solstice. 

The car Luke drove was fast, sexy, and completely impractical. He didn’t push the car to its limits but just sitting in it was exciting. 

I gave him directions. Luke didn’t know where we were going, only that it was to a beach in Montauk. When I’d brought it up, he just shrugged and agreed to the drive. I mean. Luke probably knew. We’d just bought a house together; it made sense that we would go see it.

I was so nervous that my hands were sweaty. I kept wiping them on my jeans. 

What if he hated it?

The sports car didn’t like sand, which was fine because we could walk the remaining distance. The dunes here were tall but they didn’t provide much cover from the cold air blowing off the ocean. 

Nausea rolled in my stomach, a mixture of excitement and nervousness. 

What if he didn’t want to stay with me?

The little blue cabin appeared out of nowhere, hidden among the dunes. I led Luke up to it. Should I say something? My hands shook as I took out the key to my very first house. Well, the house was in Luke’s name because legally I was a minor but it was mine. 

I unlocked the cabin and pushed the door open. “It’s not a luxury suite on a yacht and we really need to clean but it’ll be just you and me here,” I said in a way that implied we’d actually talked about this beforehand. How many things could I just spring on Luke before he got tired of it?

The reality was that the beach house was barely a step above the Hermes Cabin: it really needed to be deep cleaned and updated. With the unlimited Lotus Hotel and Casino cash card, I wasn’t too worried about funding the renovations. But would Luke like it? Would he be able to see the potential? “There’s only one bedroom so we’ll have to share -“

“This is our house?” Luke asked. His tone was carefully neutral.

I nodded and couldn’t bring myself to look at him. A spider scuttled across the floor to hide under the pull-out couch. 

Luke picked me up, ducked into the house, and spun me around. He was grinning when he put me down. “It’s great,” he said earnestly.

So I gave him a tour. To say that the beach house was modest was an understatement. There were only three rooms. Upon walking in, you were in the living room. There was a television, bookshelves, a couch. A full kitchen attached to the living room and had a table big enough to fit six people. The bathroom had a tub and shower combo but it also housed the stacked washer and dryer. There was a small linen closet too. And the bedroom had a small wardrobe, a smaller closet, and a queen sized bed. I didn’t mention that the bedroom door also had a lock on it, because I didn’t want him to think that’s why I was doing this. 

There was sand everywhere and spiders. The curtains were faded, the walls needed a fresh coat of paint, and some minor repairs were needed. There were no personal effects in the house, but that was because my mom and I had only been able to rent it, never buy it. The hot water only worked part of the time. 

At the end of the tour, Luke pulled me into a hug and kissed my forehead. “Stop worrying, Percy. I like it.” He threw an arm out. “It’s twice the size of the Hermes Cabin.”

That was being generous but we also weren’t trying to fit twenty-two people in the space either. Still, Luke was obviously happy with the arrangement. I hugged him tight. It made me happy that he liked the cabin I had spent so many summers in. 

Luke rested his cheek against my head. “We should bring the boys back to help us clean. And give their brains a break from their projects.” 

We drove to the store for cleaning supplies, groceries, and to steal a car big enough for all four of us. Then we went to get Leo and Tyson. 

“Where are we going now?” Leo asked as he moved their tools from one stolen car to another. 

“We’re taking you to our house,” Luke said.

“You guys have a house?” Leo asked, sounding almost impressed. “Why have we been staying in other places?”

“Because it desperately needs to be cleaned,” I said. We packed everything, left not so much as a bolt or a sock behind.

I said goodbye to mom, told her that we needed to get back to our Quest. It was surprisingly easy to slip right out of her grasp. 

Luke drove us back to Montauk. He sang along to the country station on the car's radio, which was something he hadn’t done before. 

I watched Luke openly, fully aware of the fond smile on my face. He looked happy and I wasn’t sure how long it would last. There’d been another shoe with mom and there was one with Luke too. Luke’s shoe dropping would be much, much worse. If things went bad, then I wanted to remember this moment. 

We got to cleaning. Even with four of us, it was a lot of hard work but our progress was visible. It was like looking at the before and after pictures of something pressure washed. The dust was sweeped out and the floors were mopped. Every surface was scrubbed clean. We took the linens outside and beat them with brooms until the dust was mostly gone and the spiders had vacated and then did the same for the mattress on the pull-out couch. 

Luke took notes in spidery handwriting, jotting down everything we needed to make it home. 

The sun was long down by the time we called it quits for the day. We fried up some spam and drank tap water from the sink. It wasn’t the grandest meal we’d ever had but after a long day, it tasted good and it was easy to make. 

Leo and Tyson didn’t get a chance to go back to their projects. By the time we were done, everyone was exhausted. Leo didn’t even complain when he found out that he’d have to share the couch with Tyson. “Cool,” he mumbled and collapsed on his side. 

Tyson yawned and joined Leo. He was still small for a Cyclops, made smaller still because I’d found him a year earlier and hadn’t been feeding him during school. But he still took up most of the bed space. 

Leo was so out of it that he didn’t even complain. 

Luke and I brought the bedding back into the bedroom, made the bed. To my surprise, we didn’t just fall into bed. Luke herded me to the bathroom. “Don’t get excited. We need a shower,” he said by way of explanation. 

“I don’t think I could get excited if I tried,” I muttered as I began to strip off my clothes. Every time my clothes shifted, I could smell Gabe on them. By the time I was naked, I felt nauseous and shaky. 

The water helped me feel a little better. I poured soap on a washcloth and started scrubbing my skin. And scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. If I wasn’t a child of Poseidon, my skin would have stayed red and raw but every time it split open from the force of my scrubbing, the water healed it again. 

Luke didn’t feel the same need to scrub his skin off and only did one pass. He watched me, concern growing as my attempts at getting clean turned into raking my own nails across my skin. That was where Luke intervened. He caught me in his arms and pulled me against him, crushing my hands between our bodies so that I couldn’t try to scratch my skin off. 

It turned out that Luke wasn’t the first one to break down because of our visit to my mom’s apartment. It was me. I sobbed against his chest, all of my pent up emotions coming out at once. 

Luke held me, rubbed my back between my shoulder blades. “Oh, sweet puppy,” he murmured. “We’ll be alright.” 

The water ran cold a little while later, because the water heater was faulty, and Luke shut the shower off. He held my hand as I stepped over the edge of the tub and dried me off with one of the threadbare towels. “Percy,” Luke said after a few moments of rubbing me down and making absolutely no progress, “you’ve got to let the water go or you’ll get sick.” 

I didn’t know if that was true but I focused long enough to loosen my hold on the water and let the towel soak it up. 

With towels wrapped around our waists, we went into the bedroom. Our bedroom. Mine and Luke’s. Leaving the towels on the floor, we crawled into bed. 

I was exhausted and collapsed onto my stomach. “Luke,” I muttered, reaching a hand out for him. 

Luke came to me, laid half on top of me. His skin was cool and smelled just like him and like the ocean. It was such a relief. He nuzzled his face against the back of my neck. “I’m here,” he promised. 

“I love you, Luke,” I said as I drifted off to sleep. If he replied, I didn’t hear him. 

The next day, we went out to buy a car. Luke parked the SUV about a mile and a half from a car dealership. The first thing on our list was a car that we actually owned. Or, that Luke actually owned since I didn’t even have an ID. 

We let a salesman show us the various models and Luke told him all the things he was looking for, which was mostly durability. We left the dealership with a Hummer, driven off the lot and paid for entirely. It was a powerful vehicle and big enough to fit all of our stuff and some extra demigods. 

While we were in the car, Luke said, “Tell me how the glitter is a boobytrap.”

“Glitter is basically tiny shards of glass so you aren’t supposed to breathe it in or get it in your eyes,” I explained. “I doubt that a God would notice normal glitter. But if we make it out of celestial bronze, then it might hurt him.”

“Not enough,” Luke said. 

“No, not enough. But we need all the advantages we can get. If we can just weaken him…” 

“You don’t think he’ll notice a puff of glitter?” 

“Well the whole thing glows, since it’s made of celestial bronze, so I’m hoping not. And it’s really fine glitter, not the chunky kind, so I’m hoping that that will help.” 

Luke hummed agreement. “Sounds like as good a plan as any.”

“I need to go to the store,” I told him. 

We drove to the nearest grocery store and Luke grabbed a cart. “Is there anything you don’t want?”

“No. Whatever you grab should be fine,” I said, distracted. I scanned the front of the store until I found a key copying kiosk. “I’ll catch up with you?” 

“Okay,” Luke agreed and headed towards the bread aisle. 

I made a copy of the house key. It was mostly a formality; a mere lock wouldn’t stop Luke from entering the beach house. But I wanted him to feel like it was actually his too. A few minutes later, clutching the new key in my hand, I found Luke. 

He stood in the bakery, picking out loaves of bread. It reminded me of myself, picking out loaves to offer to Hermes. Luke and his dad were more alike than he realized. 

“Hey,” I said as I slid up to Luke and nudged him with my shoulder. 

“Hey yourself,” Luke said with a small smile. He chose his bread. 

I held out my hand. “This is for you.” 

He put his hand under mine, caught the key when I dropped it into his palm. 

“It’s for the house. I know you can get in whenever you want, even without a key but I thought. Maybe you would want one anyway.” My face turned red. Maybe it was a stupid idea. 

Luke kissed my cheek. “Thank you.”

Tyson was awake and sitting at the kitchen table with the master bolt, tinkering away. He was very focused on his work but he still heard me coming up to him. “Good morning, brother.”

“Morning, Tyson,” I said and peered at the project. “Did you sleep okay on the couch?”

“Oh yes. It was much better than the box.” Tyson’s fingers were large but he handled the tools and bolt so delicately. Watching Tyson work always fascinated me. “I am happy.”

I patted Tyson’s massive back. “I’m happy that you’re happy,” I said. And I was. It was good to have my brother off the streets. Tyson could stay here for a while but I couldn’t let him live here forever. When Leo went away, Tyson would have to leave too. The only problem was, I'm not sure where I should send him. Would dad claim him so that Tyson could live at Camp Half-Blood? Would he want Tyson to work for him in the undersea forges? And if dad did want him, would Tyson tell him our secrets? And what in the Underworld was I going to do with Leo?

A headache brewed at the back of my head. One problem at a time. I set the coffee pot brewing for Luke. We may not have had a lot of food but by the gods, Luke wouldn’t leave the grocery store without a coffee pot and French vanilla roast. Soon, the delicious smell of fresh coffee filled the house. 

Leo and Luke were both resurrected by the smell of coffee. 

Leo’s head poked over the back of the couch. Once he realized that his nose did not deceive him, Leo scrambled over the couch and poured himself coffee into a chipped mug. 

Shortly after Luke came out of the bedroom in just his black jeans, making a beeline for the coffee pot. For a wild second, I thought he was going to drink it straight from the pot but at the last second, Luke found a mug in the cupboard and poured himself a cup like a normal human being. After he took a long drink of the extremely hot coffee, Luke dipped his head to kiss my cheek. His lips were hot. “Thanks,” he said. 

Leo looked between us. “Should I kiss you too, Percy?”

I grinned and turned so that my cheek was facing him. “I accept kisses or celestial bronze in exchange for coffee.” 

I hadn’t actually been expecting anything from him because the question was like how he used to talk. With a glance at Luke, Leo danced over to me and quickly pecked my cheek. “Thanks for the coffee, Percy. You’re a godsend.” Then Leo skipped over to Tyson, keeping the cyclops between himself and Luke. 

Luke and I just started dating. He hadn’t even kissed me properly yet. But I knew that he didn’t like other people making moves on me - Hermes. However, Luke must not have felt threatened in the slightest because he just rolled his eyes. He stood on Tyson’s other side and looked down at the table. This was the closest that Luke voluntarily got to Tyson. There was still three feet between them. “How’s it going, big guy?” 

“I am doing very good,” Tyson said. It was hard to tell if he was talking about himself or his project. 

Leo nodded approvingly as he looked over what Tyson did. “We’re almost done with the first surprise,” Leo said to us. 

“The first surprise?” I asked. 

Luke nodded. “They’re going to make it better. Cooler. Right, guys?”

"Right,” Tyson and Leo agreed in unison. 

“Cooler how?” I asked. 

“Spikes,” Tyson said excitedly. 

“Spikes?” I asked. 

“Spikes,” Luke confirmed. He jerked his chin towards the front door and I followed him out onto the beach. 

I headed straight for the water, walked into the surf up to my ankles. It was cold and rejuvenating; I was instantly awake. “Alright,” I said. “Tell me about the spikes.”

Luke stayed out of the water and drank his coffee. “I’ve been thinking about what happens when the glitter runs out. It’s a good idea but it’s limited.” 

I nodded. 

“Inspiration embedded itself in my hand when I touched the dresser the other day,” Luke said, with a dry look at me as though it was my fault no one ever sanded the dresser before putting it in our room. 

“You got a hand full of splinters,” I said. I’d spent a couple of hours picking all the splinters out of Luke’s palm so that we could heal him without trapping them beneath the skin. 

“You want to give him splinters? Won’t he notice?”

“You want to shred his lungs with glitter,” Luke pointed out, matching my sarcastic tone. Good point. “I don’t think he’ll notice. They’ll be really thin and fine. Microscopic. And demigods don’t always notice their injuries or realize how severe they are. Gods are like that but times a thousand.” 

“Makes sense,” I agreed. My eyes were on the water, watching the shallows for the movement of fish. They would come to me if I called them but sometimes I liked getting lucky. 

“And metal is a conductor for electricity,” Luke added with a sly smile. 

I glanced over at Luke and couldn’t help but smile back. “It’ll fry his hands when he goes to use his powers. Clever,” I said. 

Luke’s grin widened. 

I felt the shape of a little skate glide by and pounced almost before I’d consciously made the decision to. I caught it by the tail, sunk my teeth into its fleshy head. For the few seconds that I was underwater, my gills flared. Then I lifted my head and my gills smoothed back against my lungs as I breathed air again. 

The skate was a spiny fish, covered in spots and only about a foot long. 

I ignored its voice in my head and sank my teeth into one wing. The skin was rubbery and tough, I had to shake my head and pull the skate away from me to rip off a chunk of meat. 

“Percy, you know we have food in the house, right?” Luke asked. 

I turned my head towards him, cheek full of fish. It tasted sweetish. Not my favorite fish. “Yes.” 

Luke made a gesture that greatly articulated _‘then what the fuck are you doing?’_

I swallowed. “Is this a deal breaker?”

Luke laughed. When was the last time I actually heard him laugh? He shook his head. “I already knew about it.”

“Because you were spying on me.”

“Yeah,” Luke agreed without a hint of shame in his voice. “But it’s fucking weird, even for a demigod.” 

He had no idea how weird I was _because_ I was a demigod. “Well,” I said slowly. “I’ve got more...powers and abnormalities than most demigods.” 

Luke’s brow creased. “I noticed. Why is that?”

I tore off another chunk of fish to give myself time to think. Once I finished chewing and swallowing, I said, “When I was in Tartarus, I shattered something inside of me. Obviously it was a spiritual shattering, otherwise I wouldn’t have this level of control still, but yeah. Since then, my powers have just been growing and things. Oh, and I got cut by Backbiter once.” 

Luke set his mug in the sand. He joined me in the water, squatted beside me so that he could look me in the eye. “What the fuck does that mean?” 

“It means I was nicked with your soul-stealing sword?” I asked, peeling the skate’s skin from the meat.

“Something shattered?” Luke pressed. 

“Oh. Yeah. I don’t really know,” I shrugged, dropping my gaze to the skate. It was finally dead, voice gone silent in my head. “I was already powerful but now I don’t really have limits.”

“You passed out after the tsunami,” Luke pointed out. 

“Oh yeah. But that was a two hundred foot wave, making the water horse, and sword fighting a God all at once. And I’m still not great with ice so I had to focus to bust out of that. The first time I fought him, I could only make a twelve foot wave.” I popped a sliver of meat into my mouth. “If I stayed in the ocean, I could have kept going.” 

“You are driving my anxiety to new levels,” Luke said. “But I’m also relieved that we have some actual fire power on our side.” 

I blinked. “Luke, you can move so fast that you turn invisible and not even the Gods can see you. Who needs firepower when you can dismember them in their sleep?” 

“Gods don’t sleep,” Luke said. “And doing that is exhausting and if I slow down, I’ll be visible and -“

I waved a hand. “Stop it. That’s a seriously cool power. Very useful and if you used it more, it wouldn’t wear you out so much.” 

The skate in my hand was suddenly gone and I heard a splash. 

“Hey!” I frowned at Luke. “I was eating that.” 

“Percy, if you want fish, I’ll cook it for you. Or I’ll make you proper sushi. Any kind of fish you can catch,” Luke pulled me into his arms and kissed my nose. “But eating live, raw fish is freaky as fuck.” 

I snapped my teeth half-heartedly at Luke’s face. “Fine,” I agreed with a pout. 

Luke kissed my nose again. Then he pulled a magazine from his back pocket. Except I’d been checking out his ass and he didn’t _have_ a magazine in his back pocket when we came out here. “We’ll have to order some stuff.” Luke looked up at me. “What?”

“Where did you pull that from?”

“Oh.” Luke looked down at the magazine like he’d never seen it before. “It’s just something all of my dad’s claimed kids get access to.”

“Looks like a catalogue,” I said peering at the glossy pictures of products. 

“It is,” Luke agreed. “Dad’s like the Avon lady.” He flipped through the pages. 

I laughed and reached for Luke. His legs and hands immediately dried. “What does he sell?”

“Almost every magical item you can think of,” Luke replied. 

“Does he sell plants?”

“Plants? Yeah, there’s a section here.” Luke flipped a few more pages and came to the selection of magical plants that Hermes sold. 

I peered at it upside down, trying to read the words. Even though they were in Ancient Greek, it wasn’t easy to read upside down. “He sells lotus plants.”

Luke tensed. “You want more of those?”

I nodded and didn’t elaborate. My eyes were scanning the pages for something else, something desperately important. “I need as many of these as we can get,” I said and pointed to the image with a dry finger. 

“Silphium?” Luke read the name. “Why?”

“It’s for my health,” I said and felt my face turning hot. The plant was extinct on earth but I’d once stolen it from a God’s garden before. If I could outright buy it, that would be much better. 

Luke studied me and then shrugged. “Okay. We’ll get that too.” Then he flipped back to what he’d been looking at before, industrial strength yet fashionable gloves and invisible glue that would bind two things together forever. 

Ordering was simple: you filled out the form on the back of the catalog and a pouch appeared to put drachmas into. Once you paid, it took between one hour and one day to deliver, depending on what you asked for. 

Our order came quickly. Luke set the kids to work on shaving down the celestial bronze into the thinnest of slivers and then gluing them to the outside of the canister. The gloves came in handy. 

While they did that, I took my plants and found a good place for them outside. The plants were incredibly important, though for two different reasons. The lotus was for our mission. I was pretty sure that I knew what to do with Tyson now. Killing him wouldn’t work, because he was a monster. He would reform in Tartarus with all his memories intact and would still be able to rat us out. But if he didn’t have the memories, I wouldn’t have to kill him and we fixed the problem. 

I sat in the shade at the side of the house and decided that a fenced in area here would be good for keeping mortals out. It wouldn’t have to be a huge, scary fence or anything. A lattice fence would be fine as long as I imbedded it with magic. Maybe I could invest in a guard dragon or something. 

Once my plants were settled, I wandered back into the house and found Luke. He stood watching Leo and Tyson with a pensive expression on his face. I attached myself to his side. “What do you think about a dragon?”

“A dragon?” Luke echoed as he slid an arm around my shoulders. “What for?”

“To protect my plants,” I said. “And the house, I guess.”

Luke looked at me for a long, long while. I wondered if he was thinking of the dragon that gave him his scar, Landon. With his free hand, he took the catalogue out of his back pocket again. “There’s a pet section,” he explained as he handed it to me. 

I took the catalogue and sat on the couch, thumbing through it until I got to the pet section. There were a lot of creatures, some of which I knew were as sentient as humans and some of which were actual humans. I frowned. “Luke, is it only Hermes kids who get this magazine?” I called over my shoulder.

“No. We just get it for free,” Luke called back. 

Oh. Well, that made me feel a tiny bit better. Barely. There were several models of dragon available and their lineage was listed beneath their picture. One of the ones that I really liked was a great grandchild of Landon, who in turn was a child of Typhon. The dragon was blue, with two heads and six legs. I read the blurb about its skills and then looked at the price. “He wants a hundred thousand drachmas for this dragon?!”

My shout drew Luke to me. He leaned over the back of the couch and peered at my selection. “Yeah, that’s one of Landon’s descendants. They go for a lot.” 

“Oh,” I said unhappily. Hermes didn’t take the Lotus Hotel and Casino credit card we had. He only took drachmas, which was incredibly annoying. 

“There are other dragons here,” Luke pointed out. 

And there were other dragons but none of them really spoke to me like the blue one did. 

Luke glanced at my face. “How important is it that you have _that_ dragon?” 

I met his eye, fully aware that I was employing a puppy dog look, pouting and pleading.

Luke sighed. “We’ll save up for it,” he promised. 

Spending a drachma to talk to Clovis made me scowl. “I need the bed,” I said when he answered the call. 

Clovis was laying in said bed, out in the woods because it was too big to fit into any Cabin. “Oh how I’ve dreaded this day, Percy Jackson.” Clovis sent the Valentines bed to the address I gave him and he also sent a crude drawing of a raised middle finger taped to the pillow. 

The bed was too big to drag into the house, but that was fine. I left it in the sand where Hermes had delivered it. 

“What’s that for?” Leo asked. He stood near the front door, shoes long gone and a curious look in his eye. He hadn’t gotten the mischievous gleam back in his eyes yet. I wasn’t sure that he ever would. 

I waved Leo over. “It’s a trap,” I said, and explained how it worked. 

Leo gave it a try and was almost delighted by the results, even though he wound up tied to the bed. I guessed it was more delightful when someone wasn’t going to cut off your head and feet. “What are you going to do with it, Percy?”

There were only eight days left till the summer solstice. “I was hoping you and Tyson could figure out how it worked and make me a version out of celestial bronze,” I said. “Something portable, so that I can kill monsters.” 

Leo ordered the ropes to release him. He sat up and nodded slowly as he thought about it. “You want us to take it apart?” 

I nodded. “Don’t worry about ruining the bed. That part doesn’t matter to me.”

“Yeah,” Leo agreed. “We can probably do this.” He twisted around to peer at the places the ropes disappeared into. 

Tyson joined us later and insisted that he be tied to it too. He was absolutely delighted in the ropes. Of course it was all fun and games when your life wasn’t at stake. 

I told him what I wanted. 

Watching the sunset on the beach gave me the same feeling of eager anticipation that a caged animal felt just before they were about to be released. It swelled within me, rose like high tide over the sandy dunes. 

The sun set, the last rays of light winked out of view, and the clock officially started. A mental countdown that I felt in my bones. Minute after minute ticking by, at once quick and sluggish. The kids, sent to showers and bed, bleary-eyed and brains still buzzing from work. Always so much work to be done during the day. 

Luke and I took separate showers, hadn’t showered together since our first night here. Me first, Luke second, and the awful waiting between. I tossed and turned while I waited; the sheets smelled like us but they always smelled like me more when Luke got back. 

Luke used his powers more; a short burst of speed between the bathroom and bedroom. One second I would be alone, the next he would be there. Luke lay behind me, pressed up hot to my back, an arm draped over my side. Now that he was stone cold sober, the events from the hotel room were not repeated. 

I was too scared of pushing Luke away to initiate anything except the most chaste of kisses - never on the mouth - and the newest thing where we rubbed our faces together like cats scent marking their territory. Smelling like Luke calmed my nerves and quieted Gabe’s awful voice in my head calling me a whore. 

I lay in bed and traced patterns into Luke’s hand. Sleep evaded me the closer that we got to the summer solstice. “I wish we could call Jason.”

Luke sensed my tension but no matter how often he asked, I wouldn’t tell him what I was planning. He was losing sleep too. He kissed the back of my head. “An Iris message won’t work?”

“Different goddess,” I said. “The Romans send messages via giant eagle but I don’t have any of those lying around.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Luke promised. He eased into a doze. 

I lay still, tracing patterns on his skin and thinking about Jason and the upcoming fights. Leo and Tyson were making good progress with the portable trap. It should be ready by the time I had to go. I had no idea how Jason planned on doing his part, only that he’d told me not to worry about it. I didn’t doubt his loyalty, but I still wished that I knew what he was going to do. 

Leo and Tyson demolished the bed, which Clovis wouldn’t be too happy about. They had managed to replicate the ropes with celestial bronze, something to do with Leo’s magic. Actually, it was Leo’s magic that allowed the glitter to dispense and the ropes to bind too; something he had inherited from his dad. They tried to explain the mechanics to me but Leo just gestured a lot and Tyson nodded as though that cleared anything up. 

I left them to it, set up on the sand with our kitchen table as a workbench. Their fire resistance extended to the sun; no sunburns for them no matter how long they were beneath its rays. 

Luke and I sparred in the sand. Mostly with swords. Sometimes we did hand-to-hand but Luke was better at that than me. I had to resort to tricks if I wanted to win a round; but once I used a trick, I couldn’t use it again because Luke was ready for it. He was a clever opponent and now he was using that awesome speed of his more and more. 

We experimented with that too. It turned out that Luke could run so fast that he created dust devils, even when there wasn’t any other source of wind. He could walk on water but the second he stopped moving, he’d fall beneath the waves. And, of course, he could run on air. The thing was, I couldn’t actually see him rising in the air like running up a flight of stairs. 

But I sure as Zeus saw it when he fell. Mostly because when you fall from those heights, you break shit. Sometimes I heard the crack of bone breaking before I even saw Luke. Other times, I felt him fall into the ocean. Falling into the ocean resulted in broken bones too; it wasn’t much better than hitting the sand unless you fell the right way. 

Luke didn’t seem to mind. He healed himself with nectar or ambrosia and then he was right back to it. This kind of dedication wasn’t something that I’d seen before, though Annabeth had told me about it. I finally understood what she meant. 

We looked at the dummy in pensive silence. The sheer strength of the braided metal rope had cut off the hands and feet of the dummy, even though the fine metal hadn’t been made for cutting fabric. 

“It probably won’t do that to a monster,” Leo said weakly. 

“It works well against dummies,” Tyson added. 

“I think we need to try it on something alive,” Luke said finally. 

We all looked at him. 

Luke didn’t take his eyes off the chair. 

I did not like the look on his face. “We can’t just try it on someone. It’s,” I paused, thinking. “Literally torture. They’d die.”

“Only if they’re mortal,” Luke pointed out. He glanced at me. “Do you care about using a mortal?”

My cheeks flushed hotly. “That was a natural disaster,” I said quietly. “This is different.” So my moral compass wasn’t exactly pointing to virtue anymore but I didn’t set out to intentionally hurt mortals. With the exception of Gabe. And Nancy Bobofit. And maybe a girl I loved. 

Okay, so the needle on my moral compass was firmly pointed to wicked. 

Even so. 

“I wasn’t suggesting a mortal,” Luke said dismissively. “Tyson, go get the canteens of nectar off the counter.” 

“Okay,” Tyson said and went into the house. 

Dread rippled through me. “Luke?” 

Luke ignored me. 

I didn’t think he would hurt Tyson or Leo. I was fairly certain he wouldn’t hurt me anymore either. There was only one other non-mortal in the vicinity to test the ropes on. I grabbed his sleeve. “Luke.”

Tyson came back outside with the canteens. 

What happened next, happened so fast I almost couldn’t process it. Luke shoved me away from him so hard I fell onto my butt in the sand. He stepped towards the chair, snapped his fingers, and said _“ergos.”_

The bronze ropes came to life, headed right for Luke. They wrapped around his wrists and ankles and yanked him hard towards the chair. In seconds, Luke was tied to the chair by his stumps, hands and feet in the sand a few feet from his body. Red blood gushed from the four wounds. 

I’d seen enough people lose limbs that the gore didn’t freeze me like it used to. I grabbed Luke’s severed limbs and the canteens and hurried to put my love back together again. My knees shook so bad that even once Luke’s limbs were reattached, I couldn’t stand up. 

Luke hadn’t made a single sound the whole time. While the nectar was doing its work superficially connecting the skin, Luke slowly exhaled. A long few moments later he inhaled again. Slow, deliberate breathing. His wide, wide eyes were glassy and his face was so pale. 

There was blood everywhere. 

I pulled the ocean to us but all I could heal on other people was superficial things. At least I could wash away the blood. When we were both spotless, I let the water go back to the sea. “T-Tyson,” I said and my voice wavered. “Will you please, _carefully,_ take Luke to our bed?” 

Luke wouldn’t be able to walk or use his hands until the inside bits healed; bone and tendon, muscle and veins. 

Tyson picked Luke up so carefully and carried him bridal style into the house, turning sideways to go through the door so that he didn’t accidentally hurt Luke on the doorframe. 

Luke didn’t even complain about being that close to a cyclops. 

I was about to follow but then I saw Leo. 

Leo stood trembling, a lot farther back than he’d originally been. His face was ashen, his eyes wide. He looked at me, flinched back when I went towards him. “Why did we make this?” 

I didn’t answer. Leo didn’t need to know about my crusade against the Gods.

Leo shook his head. “Who are you people? Is this what your Camp Half-Blood is all about?” 

I shook my head slowly. “Camp Half-Blood is safe.” More or less. I took a few steps closer to him, so that my next words were just between us. “Leo, it’s a good idea to keep what you’ve been doing for me a secret. Because we’re friends and that’s what friends do. They keep each other’s secrets.” 

Leo looked like he was going to faint but he only nodded. He was used to my word being the word of God. “Friends keep secrets for friends.”

“Come inside,” I said because I knew he used to be a flight risk and I was not going to hunt him down a second time. 

Leo’s legs visibly shook as he walked past me and into the house. He gave me a wide berth and immediately disappeared into the bathroom. There was no window in the bathroom so I wasn’t worried about him slipping out. 

Tyson was sitting at the kitchen table, working on something else with scraps. He looked at me with a big, watery eye. “Is Luke going to be okay?” 

“Luke will be fine, big guy. He wouldn’t have done that if we couldn’t fix it. He’ll just be in bed for a couple of days.” I patted Tyson’s shoulder as I passed him. “Make sure Leo doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Okay, Percy.” 

Then, I went into the bedroom I shared with Luke. 

Luke lay on his back with his eyes closed. “Hey,” he said without opening his eyes. 

With more calm than I felt, I closed the door quietly. Once we had some semblance of privacy, I turned to Luke again. “You’re an idiot,” I told him and let all of my anger into my voice. “You scared both of them but now Leo thinks that we’re the bad guys and I’d be shocked if he didn’t try to run away at least once before I get him to Camp Half-Blood tonight.” 

Luke briefly looked regretful but then his expression steeled. “We needed to try it on something alive. I wasn’t going to let any of you be the ones to do it.” 

“So you just tried it on yourself with no regard for how any of _us_ feel about having to see something like that. I’ve already _been_ to war, Luke. I don’t need to see that shit in my own front yard.” I kept going, very angry. “You’re lucky that I’ve had to reattach limbs before because if I didn’t have that experience, then you would have bled out.” 

Luke, wisely, kept his mouth shut. He watched me warily, looking more repentant the more I spoke. 

“And why did you have to do that in front of the kids? Tyson and Leo have never seen anything like that. They’re kids. One only knows abandonment and pain and the other has absolutely no context for anything. You can’t just do shit like that in front of them.” 

Luke was silent for a long few minutes. “I’m sorry,” he said finally and looked cowed. 

“Tell that to Leo!” I hissed. 

“Will you go get him for me?” 

I thought about saying no. But maybe it would help Leo to see that Luke wasn’t really hurt. I nodded and went to coax Leo out of the bathroom. 

To my surprise, Leo went to our bedroom without much fuss. He closed the door and was in there for forty minutes before he came out. Instead of fear and loathing, Leo looked thoughtful. 

I didn’t ask what they’d talked about and I hadn’t tried to listen in. “Are you okay?” I asked him. 

Leo nodded, still looking thoughtful. “He told me that you’re going to kill the monsters.” 

I nodded and wondered what else Luke had told Leo. That wasn’t news. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Leo promised.

I was so relieved that Luke had managed to sway Leo. Then again, Luke was good at that sort of thing. If he wasn’t, he couldn’t have recruited so many demigods. 

It was two days before the summer solstice. It was time to send Leo and Tyson on their way. “It’s time that you go to Camp,” I told Leo. “Go pack your stuff.”

Leo did as I told him, perfectly obedient. I hated seeing him like this. I missed the Leo that told jokes and smiled. “What about Tyson?”

“Tyson has a different place he’s needed,” I lied. “If you want someone to talk to about it while you’re at Camp, you can talk to Clovis. Just make sure that you aren’t overheard.”

Leo nodded. He gathered together what little belongings he had. His whole life fit into a backpack. I didn’t miss those days and I hoped that being around his siblings would be good for him. 

Leo and Tyson said a tearful, heartfelt goodbye. Neither of them wanted to be separated. 

I drove Leo to Camp Half-Blood myself. At least to the boundary. I didn’t want to cross it’s borders and get caught by Mr. D, so I stayed in the car. “Just over that hill,” I told Leo. “Don’t stop until you hit the Big House. When you get there, knock on the door and ask for Chiron. Tell him that Percy and Luke sent you.” 

“Okay, Percy,” Leo agreed. He hesitated with his hand on the door. “I hope you catch all the monsters.” 

Me too. 

“We will,” I said firmly. 

Leo walked up the hill towards Thalia’s pine tree, suitcase in hand. The Mist rippled around him as he crossed the boundary. 

Once I was sure that Leo was safe, I turned the car around and drove home. 

Tyson was sitting on the beach when I got home, staring out at the water. 

I went to my garden and picked a flower, then went inside. Baking wasn’t really my specialty but I could make a decent vanilla cake and we had all the ingredients thanks to more shopping trips. 

An hour later, I had a small blue cake. I put it on a plate with a fork and took it out to the beach where Tyson sat. “Hey, Tyson. I made you a cake.” 

Tyson sniffled and took the cake. “Thank you, Percy.” He ate it dejectedly, big brown eye sad and watery. “The cake is good,” Tyson said after a few bites. 

I forced myself to smile. “Thanks.” I watched Tyson from the corner of my eye. 

“I miss Leo,” Tyson said and took another bite. 

“Me too, bud,” I said. 

Tyson finished his cake. He set the plate in the sand and looked out at the ocean. A few moments later, Tyson looked at me. His pupil was dilated. “Who are you?” 

“A friend,” I said. 

“Who am I?” Tyson asked. 

“Your name is Tyson. You live in the ocean.” I pointed to the water. 

“Oh,” Tyson said. His gaze was dazed as he looked at the sparkling water. 

“You should go back to it,” I said and my voice cracked. 

Tyson stood up and walked into the water. The water came up to his waist, then his shoulders, and finally over his head. My brother disappeared beneath the waves. 

Tears slid down my cheeks. I drew my legs up to my chest and sobbed into my arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen guys, gills? Yes. Percy has to breathe somehow. My personal favorite theory is that his lungs have gill feathers (the extremely scientific term) sort of like axolotls. Visualize a sea plant. It goes limp when out of the water and flares up when it's in the water except these are gills so they just act as filters. That's not the only anatomical change that I've given Percy. My boy is feral. 
> 
> So I remember reading this quote in one of the PJO books that went something like "my mom would be relieved if I told her I was out drinking/partying/etc" or something like that. Did I imagine it? I must have because I spent an hour searching for it and not finding it. If anyone knows what I'm talking about...hit me up.


	12. We Finally Get To The Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy returns to the Underworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I broke 100,000 words with this chapter.
> 
> So some people were like "damn, Luke's pain tolerance is high" and yes, that's true. But there's more to it than that. I've seen people lose limbs (don't ask) and it's usually not the screaming process that the movies make it out to be. Even when it isn't an instantaneous process like what Luke went through, people are shockingly quiet.

  
Luke’s blood was still on the metal ropes of my torture device. I washed them out in the ocean and tried not to be angry.

Anger was easier than fear. Being scared meant admitting that something was seriously wrong. Wrong with Luke. Who did shit like that in front of kids? 

I bit my lip.

There were signs of course and I knew what kind of person he could be molded into. Luke had always been a monster. I was just shaping him into one I could use. It wasn’t quite the easy process I thought it would be. 

The weapon that Leo and Tyson had made could fit into a backpack. I’d watched carefully while they were setting it up and I was confident that I could do it myself. I packed it away and set it by the door with Luke’s flying sneakers and the helm of darkness, still in the shape of a ski mask. 

Today was the day before the summer solstice.

I spent it in bed beside Luke, sleeping away most of the day. I would have to be awake tonight. 

Luke let me sleep in peace, flipping through the only source of interest he had; the Hermes catalogue. He shouldn’t have been moving that much, the insides of his limbs needed to fuse and heal, but I was pretty sure that he was sneaking nectar while I was asleep. Luke didn’t like to be out of commission. 

While I was awake, he asked, “Where are the kids?” 

“I took Leo to Camp Half-Blood,” I said into the pillow. 

“And Tyson?”

“He’s gone too.”

“Gone as in…?”

“As in Tyson is no more. I gave him a lotus flower. He’s in the ocean somewhere.” I rolled over to look at Luke. “I was going to kill him but he’s technically a monster. He’d just reform in Tartarus with an interesting story to tell.”

Luke brushed my hair out of my eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t remember the last time I was okay,” I admitted. If I wasn’t all cried out, I would have started to cry again. Instead, I went back to sleep. 

I woke up to Luke kissing the fine hairs on the back of my neck. “Nn. Luke.”

“I’m sorry about your friend and brother,” Luke said softly. He sounded like he meant it. His lips were hot against the back of my neck, not like the feverish lust I experienced but like he was burning up. Too much nectar. 

“Don’t die on me,” I managed. Then I closed my eyes and fell back into the nightmares that had plagued me since I was twelve. 

The next time I woke up, Luke was asleep and everything was dark. I pushed myself up and briefly considered just staying here, curled up with Luke where I was safe and warm. 

But I couldn’t. I forced myself out of bed and walked around to Luke’s side of the bed. Carefully I pulled Backbiter from beneath Luke’s pillow. I left Riptide in its place. I kissed Luke’s forehead, was glad to find that his fever was down, and left the room. I knew where all of the creaky boards were and avoided them. 

A few minutes later, I stood in the bathroom with the black ski mask in my hands. This wasn’t the first time that I had held a God’s symbol of power. It was the first time that I would be using one. I pulled the mask on over my head. 

Immediately, I felt it shift and change into something else. Slowly, I raised my eyes to look at my reflection in the mirror. I knew immediately what I was looking at, though I hadn’t expected it at all. It was the face of an orca, scaled down to my size and missing the lower jaw. The teeth in the top jaw were more than an inch long and gleamed wickedly. The worst part was probably the eyes, gleaming bluish with an animal eyeshine. It wasn’t cute or even cool; there was something menacing about it. Looking at it made a cold knot of fear form in my belly so I dropped my gaze. 

It was time to go. 

I drove the car to Central Park and walked to a spot just north of the Pond. The boulders were so unassuming that I almost missed them. That, I supposed, was the point. The Door of Orpheus could only be opened by music, because Orpheus had charmed the earth into creating a passage for him. Last time I was here, I’d used Grover to flute open the entrance. 

If the earth could stand to listen to Grover’s bad reed playing, then the earth could probably stand to hear me sing. Now, you may think that my voice was terrible because I was led to believe that it was for most of my life and was basically shamed into not singing - thanks mom - but that would be incorrect. I would not cause an avalanche with my singing voice. I caused something much worse. 

“I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog and lone / I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own / I’m a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep / I love to sit and bay the moon and keep fat souls from sleep.” 

The song was a poem but all things could be sung and poetry in particular was meant to be sung. The earth did not yet part but I could feel it waking up beneath my feet, displacing the water among it. I kept singing.

“I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet / a sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat / not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate, but shut door and sharp stone and cuff and kick and hate.” 

The boulders trembled. 

“Not for me the other dogs, running by my side / some have run a short while, but none of them would bide / o mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best / wide wind and wild stars and the hunger of the quest.” 

The boulders cracked open, revealing a triangular crevice. The air smelled of mildew and the cloying scent of death. Steps led down into the darkness. There were no friends to see me go, no friends to come with me. I was on my own. This could be a one way trip. I hadn’t even properly said goodbye to Luke. 

I glanced up at the stars, wondering if I would ever see them again. 

There was no one to pray to for help or guidance. 

I took my first step into the darkness. When I was a few steps in, the entrance shut behind me. I was in complete darkness. It took my eyes a moment to adjust and my brain an even longer moment to realize that the glowing blue orbs in the orca mask - the helm of darkness - were lighting my path. I imagined that I was a scary figure coming out of the dark and smiled faintly. 

Thanks to the mask, I could keep Backbiter sheathed. Which meant that I could put my hand on the earthy wall to help guide me. When I was in the ocean, I used electromagnetism to map out my surroundings. I could do the same here, to a much lesser degree, thanks to the water trapped within the earth. The stairs were narrow, steep, and slippery. There was only one way to go, no side rooms or little crevices to get lost in. 

It felt like hours had passed before I came out at the base of a cliff, on a plain of black volcanic sand. To my right, the River Styx gushed from the rocks and roared off in a cascade of rapids. To my left, away in the gloom, fires burned on the ramparts of Erebos, the great black walls of Hades’ kingdom. 

I took an unsteady breath to calm my nerves. It was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. I headed towards the line of the dead, waiting to get into their afterlives. There was no toy or hellhound to distract Cerberus, no Nico to get me through the line without being stopped. As it turned out, I didn’t need any of those things. 

The security ghouls saw me coming and backed away quickly. They ducked their heads and not a single one of them met my eye. The dead parted for me, shifting and chittering restlessly. Cerberus whimpered when he saw me and jumped out of the way when I tried to go between his front paws. 

The helm of darkness. It was working on the creatures of the Underworld.

I smiled. 

Someone screamed. 

I went unchallenged into the Fields of Asphodel and hiked over the black fields of grass dotted with black poplar trees. Being in the Underworld always made me think of my death, and what would happen to my soul afterwards. Right now, I was mostly wondering what would happen to this place if I succeeded. 

Not to mention California. Maybe the state would actually drop off the continent like everyone always said it would. 

I walked through the gates to Hades’ kingdom. No one came to greet me. It looked like there wasn’t a soul around. 

The fountains in Persephone’s garden were empty, which I found to be quite flattering. They really thought that I was that dangerous. Despite the empty fountains, there didn’t seem to be any extra security. Either that or they were all hiding from me. 

Well, there were five rivers in the Underworld and I could control all of them but one. I called the Lethe to me, focused hard on summoning it from its banks. The river was only too happy to come to me; it longed to be touched, to steal the memories away and leave behind a clean slate. It took on the shape I wanted, an identical copy of me. 

I took off the helm of darkness and was extremely careful placing it on the head of my doppelgänger. One touch of the water and I would lose precious memories. 

My doppelgänger stood attentively while I set up the trap for Hades. The throne belonging to the Lord of the Dead was similar to his cloak of human souls and the helm of darkness in that it gave off an aura of fear and hopelessness. I was far from immune to fear but when you live the better part of your life in a state of fear, it just doesn’t hit that hard. Sort of like how Misery had no effect on Nico because he was already so miserable. I wouldn’t be able to test the trap because it would sever my limbs so I just had to hope that I’d set it up right. 

The back of my neck prickled. I whipped around.

The Lethe copy of me was reaching out to touch me. 

**“If you touch me, I can’t bring you memories,”** I told the Lethe, using the ancient language of water to speak to it. Last time I’d encountered the Lethe, we hadn’t communicated at all except through feeling. But now I knew the language of water, which was one of the very first languages to ever come into existence. 

**You have memories,** the Lethe pointed out. It’s watery, black fingers extended towards me and curled like it wanted to grasp me and pull me to it. 

**“Thousands of memories,”** I countered.

The River Lethe dropped its hand. It cocked its head as it studied me. I could see the decision it made in its face. 

I directed the Lethe to sit in Hades’ throne. 

The water shifted restlessly, uncomfortable. I had no idea what happened when a river sat on the throne of a God. It eventually lounged, one leg up and a general aura of boredom. That was my doing, not the rivers. 

**“Have you had a God?”** I asked the Lethe.

**Not for a long time.**

**“Would you like one?”** I purred. 

The Lethe rippled excitedly. **Yes.**

**“I’ll give you so many Gods you won’t know what to do with all the memories,”** I promised. Then I looked down at the flying shoes and said, _“Maia.”_

Hades was drawn to the throne room because he knew something was on his throne. He threw open the doors in such a dramatic way that I thought perhaps he should be the God of Theatre. Hades saw the figure upon his throne and stalked towards it, ill intent written in the lines of his body. When he saw the helm of darkness, Hades briefly paused and I could have sworn that he flinched. “Percy Jackson,” Hades snarled and reached out to grab my shirt. His hand went through my chest and he froze in shock. 

The figure on the throne clasped a hand on Hades’ bicep and slowly grew.

“What?” Hades asked, dazed and confused as the Lethe began to take his memories. 

It became the size of the God, black liquid encasing the God’s body. 

I snapped my fingers and whispered _“ergos.”_

Metal ropes whipped out and attached to Hades’ arms and legs. They dragged him to the throne and broke his spine by forcing him to sit facing the throne. There was a loud _crack._

Hades made a noise as though pain was an afterthought. 

I flew down from the shadows.

The Lethe threw me the helm of darkness. 

I caught it, thought _dry_, and slipped it on over my face. As I approached Hades, I drew Backbiter from its sheath. The blade was surprisingly balanced in my hand, which I hadn’t expected considering how hard the metals fought against each other. It felt like an extension of my arm, the same way Riptide did. 

I've cut off enough limbs to know that it was shockingly easy every time. Cutting off the limbs of a God was just as easy as doing it to a monster. Another thing I hadn’t expected. For some reason, I expected Gods to be made of tougher stuff. 

Actually, the most difficult part of dismembering Hades was avoiding touching the Lethe. As long as Hades was encased in its waters, he wouldn’t remember anything and forgetting had a sort of narcotic effect like the lotus flowers gave. 

I cut and cut and cut, slicing Hades into smaller and smaller pieces like mincing mushrooms. 

As I did, the Lethe took the pieces away, slid across the floor with chunks of golden meat, back towards the riverbed it called home. By the time I was done, there was golden blood on Luke’s sneakers and dripping from Backbiter’s blade. I stuck my hand in my pocket to feel the unused pearl I’d stolen. It felt like so long ago. But I couldn’t leave yet. There was one more thing I needed to do. 

I cut through Hades’ throne with Backbiter. It was harder to cut the throne than it had been to dismember the God. But I managed, one slow piece at a time, until it was broken on the marble floor. I picked up a small piece and put it in my pocket. On the off chance that Hades did come back soon, the throne wouldn’t reform without all its pieces. It would slow him down even more. 

There was a sound like leather snapping through the air. Claws clicked on the floor. “What have you done, Percy Jackson?” Alecto hissed and there was no anger in her voice, only fear and a deep sorrow. 

I turned to see the three Furies looking at the broken throne and the Ichor on my shoes. 

They flinched back when they saw the mask on my face. “The helm of darkness,” Tisiphone whispered in horror. 

I called the River Lethe back to me, summoned clean water to sneak up on the Furies and steal away their memories. There wasn’t even a fight. One moment they were the worst monsters in the Underworld and the next they were as helpless and confused as newborn babies. “Close your eyes,” I told them as I approached with Backbiter. The Furies didn’t need to be dismembered; one stab each and they went to Tartarus. 

By all accounts, it was a rather anticlimactic slaying. I couldn’t even call what had happened a fight because there was no fighting involved. 

I went to sheath my sword and noticed that Backbiter’s blade was clean again; it had drunk the blood of Hades and the Furies. Huh. The sword slid into its scabbard. From my pocket, I took the pearl and cracked it on the floor. 

A bubble formed around me and took me back to the ocean. The absolute shock of cold water told me I was somehow still on the East coast. I swam to the shore and laid in the surf, staring up at the night sky. The stars were beautiful even though I was so close to the city that the light pollution blocked out the best of the stars. Now that I was back on the surface, I could feel panic rising and I took off the helm of darkness. 

There was no going back from this. I set things in motion and they couldn’t be stopped now. The bitter cold of the waves made me think of autumn. Persephone and Demeter would be next, had to be next because of their close ties to Hades. It was unlikely that the other Gods would notice his disappearance. Hades rarely left the Underworld and the other Gods were only allowed to visit via invitation. 

I crawled out of the water on my hands and knees. I wasn’t tired in my body, this was a soul exhaustion. Did I look different now? Did killing a God leave a mark on you? Would everyone look at me and know what I did? I looked at my hands but they looked the same as always. 

I laid on the beach until the sky began to lighten. It was the day of the summer solstice. We needed to get to Olympus. I needed to get to Luke. There was no time to dwell on the state of my soul. 

I walked back into the water and called a pod of dolphins over to me. They were more than happy to give me a ride to Montauk. **“Thanks,”** I said to them and swam up to the beach. 

Luke stood outside, worry creasing his face and anxiety in his features. When he saw me, he ran over to me. 

The impact of his body crushing into mine nearly made me fall over but Luke caught me before we fell. “Percy, where have you been? I woke up and you were gone and the car was gone. Where is the car?”

For a long few moments I just stood with my arms around Luke and my face buried in his chest. I breathed in his familiar scent and took comfort from him. Did he know? Could he sense it? “Central Park. We'll have to go get it to get to the Empire State Building.” 

“If you were in Central Park, how did you get in the ocean?” Luke aske. He pressed his cheek to my hair and held me close. His heart beat fast. 

I shook my head. “We don’t have time. We need to get the bolt to Zeus,” I said and forced myself to let go of Luke. 

We went inside to get ready. I returned Luke’s shoes and Backbiter to him. While I got Riptide out of the bedroom, I hid the helm of darkness beneath our mattress. If we survived this meeting with Zeus, then I’d find a better hiding place for it but as it stood, we needed to go soon. Yet, I found myself leaning against the wall, eyes closed, breathing through the panic that rose inside of me. 

What if the Gods knew? What if they could smell their own blood? Would they think Luke hurt an Olympian? No. If it came to that, I would say it was Ares blood. It wasn’t like the Gods could do DNA tests on ichor, right? 

By the time I left our bedroom, Luke had the master bolt canister ready to go. He’d showered and changed into a suit and wore gloves while handling it. He caught me looking and flushed. “I thought the suit would make the gloves look less conspicuous.” 

Compared to me in my jeans and t-shirt, Luke looked way older and mature but something was still different about him. “You shaved!” I said, surprised. 

Luke nodded. “I figure we’re going back to Camp for the summer and, well, they’ve never seen me with facial hair.” 

I touched his cheek. It was so smooth. “I like you however you like you,” I said and reached up on my tiptoes to kiss Luke’s cheek. 

Luke ruffled my hair. “Let’s go find my car.” 

The car was exactly where I left it and soon we were driving towards the Empire State Building. 

We walked into the lobby and went up to the guard at the front desk. “Six hundredth floor,” I said. 

He was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. I wasn’t much into fantasy, but the book must’ve been good, because the guard took a while to look up. “No such floor, kiddo.” 

“For fucks sake, Elliot, let us up,” Luke cut in. He crossed his arms. It reminded me that not only did I not know the guard’s name but that Luke had just been here for the winter solstice. “We need to see Zeus.” 

The security guard looked annoyed that Luke had called him out. “No appointment, no audience, kiddo. Lord Zeus doesn’t see anyone unannounced.” 

“Oh, I think he’ll make an exception.” I slipped off my backpack and unzipped the top. 

The guard looked inside at the metal cylinder, not getting what it was for a few seconds. Then his face went pale. “That isn’t…”

“Yes it is,” I promised. “You want me to take it out and -” 

“No! No!” Elliot scrambled out of his seat, fumbled around his desk for a key card, then handed it to Luke, “Insert this in the security slot. Make sure nobody else is in the elevator with you.” 

Luke offered Elliot a dry smile. He did as the guard told him. As soon as the elevator doors closed, Luke slipped the key card into the slot. The card disappeared and a new button appeared on the console, a red one that said 600. Luke pressed it and waited, and waited. 

Muzak played. “Raindrops keep falling on my head…” 

“I already know what they’re going to say so let me do the talking,” I said to Luke. 

“Sounds good to me,” Luke agreed easily. He slipped his hand into mine. His palm was sweaty. 

“It should be the easiest thing we’ve done so far,” I said. 

“Okay,” Luke said but his shoulders were high with tension. 

“And my dad is going to be there,” I added.

There was a _ding_ and the door slid open. We stepped out, still holding hands. 

We were standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below us was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. In front of us, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. My eyes followed the stairway to its end, where the peak of a mountain rose. Its summit was covered in snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces, all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires. Roads wound up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed against the snow. Gardens bloomed with olive trees and rose bushes. There was an open-air market filled with colorful tents, a stone amphitheater built on one side of the mountain, a hippodrome and a coliseum on the other. 

As Luke and I made our way to the grand central palace, I couldn’t help but notice that there was quite a bit of money exchanging hands. 

Luke, who was always in tune with money and the people around him, noticed it too. “Is that relationship money or Quest money?” he asked under his breath. 

“It’s definitely relationship money. Apparently we were the hot item on Hephaestus-TV because of the Tunnel of Love thing,” I whispered back. “But they probably thought we were going to die on our Quest too.” 

Luke snorted. “How do you know that?” 

“It was in the letter your dad sent me. You know, from the truck,” I said carefully because I didn’t want Luke to show his anger here. 

“Typical,” Luke muttered. He squeezed my hand as we climbed the main road and skirted around clusters of satyrs, naiads, and teenagers. The teenagers were minor gods and goddesses. “For fucks sake, can’t anyone look over eighteen here?” he complained. 

I felt a pang of sympathy for him. “Just wait,” I said. “My dad and Zeus will look like adults and you’ll be wishing for the teenagers again.” 

Luke groaned. 

Steps lead up to a central courtyard. Past that, the throne room. The throne room was so massive that it made Grand Central Station look like a broom closet. Enormous columns rose to a domed ceiling, which was gilded with moving constellations. Twelve thrones, built for beings the size of Hades, were arranged in an inverted U just like the Cabins at Camp Half-Blood. A massive fire crackled in the central hearth pit. I looked for Hestia but didn’t see her. The thrones were empty except for the two at the end: the head throne on the right and the one to its immediate left. 

The Gods were in giant human form, as Hades had been the first time that we met him. Looking at Zeus made my skin tingle like a static shock and it was no wonder that you could hardly touch Jason or Thalia without getting shocked. He wore a dark blue pinstriped suit and sat on a simple throne of platinum. He had a well-trimmed beard, marbled gray and black like a storm cloud. His eyes were a rainy gray, more grim than intelligent like Athena’s. As we got nearer to him, the air crackled and smelled of ozone. 

It made me miss Jason. 

I needed to find some way to get in contact with him. 

The God sitting next to Zeus was Poseidon and he was much more casually dressed than his brother. He wore leather sandals, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a Tommy Bahama shirt with coconuts and parrots all over it. His skin was deeply tanned, his hands scarred like an old-time fisherman’s. His hair was dark like mine and his eyes were the same sea glass green that almost seemed to glow when the light caught them. His throne was a deep-sea fisherman’s throne and beside it was his trident, the symbol of his power. 

Poseidon’s gaze flickered between me and Luke and finally settled on our clasped hands. His eyes narrowed slightly. He glanced at Zeus. 

Zeus elected to ignore the look. 

Luke’s hand had gone clammy to the touch. 

I let go of Luke’s hand and approached Poseidon’s throne, kneeling at his feet. “Father,” I didn’t look up.

To my left, Zeus spoke. “Should you not address the master of this house first, boy?” 

I kept my head down, and waited. 

“Peace, brother,” Poseidon finally said. “The boy defers to his father. This is only right.” 

“You still claim him then?” Zeus asked, a snarl in his voice. “You claim this child whom you sired against our sacred oath?” 

“I have admitted my wrongdoing,” Poseidon said. “Now I would hear him speak.” 

Even after all these years, even after I won over my father’s trust and respect, it still stung to be called a wrongdoing. To be nothing but the result of a God’s mistake. 

Zeus didn’t look happy about it but he finally said, “I shall listen. Then I shall make up my mind whether or not to cast this boy down from Olympus.” 

“Perseus,” Poseidon said. “Look at me.” 

I did and like before, I saw nothing in his face. I wasn’t expecting anything. We were strangers and I hadn’t yet proven myself to him.

“Address Lord Zeus, boy,” Poseidon said. “Tell him your story.” 

So I told Zeus everything, except all of the parts that I couldn’t tell him. Fortunately, I was a fabulous liar. The only person in the room who knew that I was spouting absolute bullshit was Luke and he wouldn’t tell anyone. 

Luke took the master bolt out of the backpack, as it had started sparking, and laid it at Zeus’ feet. He knelt beside me, shoulder brushing mine. 

There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of the hearth fire. 

I couldn’t pray but I thought of hope trapped in Pandora’s plinth. 

Zeus opened his palm. The lightning bolt flew into it. As he closed his fist, the metallic points flared with electricity, until he was holding what looked more like the classic thunderbolt, a twenty-foot javelin of arcing, hissing energy. 

That reminded me even more of Jason. 

The hair on the back of my neck rose. 

Looks like there was no reason to get Leo or Tyson. All of that work undone in seconds. At least they had helped with Hades. Zeus would require more planning. 

“I sense the boy tells the truth,” Zeus muttered. “But that Ares would do such a thing...it is most unlike him.” 

The thing about the Gods, was that there was only one God who could tell when someone was lying and it wasn’t these two. They had no idea whether someone lied to them, which was why they kept getting trapped and tricked by mortals. My story made sense and it had followed the events closely enough that it was more than plausible. The way to spin a good lie was to tell the truth as closely as possible.

“He is proud and impulsive,” Poseidon said. “It runs in the family.”

“Lord?” I asked.

They both said, “Yes?” 

“Ares didn’t act alone. Someone else - something else - came up with the idea.” I described my dreams, the feeling I’d had on the beach, that moment of evil that had stopped the world and made me back off from killing Ares. Not that I worded it like that, of course. “In the dreams, the voice told me to bring the bolt to the Underworld. Ares hinted that he’d been having dreams, too. I think he was being used, just as I was, to start a war.” 

“You are accusing Hades after all?” Zeus asked. 

“No,” I said. “I mean, Lord Zeus, I’ve been in the presence of Hades. This feeling on the beach was different. It was the same thing I felt when I got close to that pit. That was the entrance to Tartarus, wasn’t it? Something powerful and evil is stirring down there...something even older than the Gods.” The first time I delivered this speech, I’d probably sounded more empowered. Now I sounded meek, cautious, and afraid. They _needed_ to underestimate me, despite all that I’d done. 

Poseidon and Zeus looked at each other. They had a quick, intense discussion in Ancient Greek. It was still too fast for me to follow but I recognized one word. _Father._

Poseidon tried to say more but Zeus cut him off and held up a hand. “We will speak of this no more,” Zeus said. “I must go personally to purify this thunderbolt in the waters of Lemnos, to remove the human taint from its metal.” He rose and looked at me. His expression softened just a fraction of a degree. “You have done me a service, boy. Few heroes could have accomplished as much.”

“I had help, sir,” I said. “Luke Castellan and -“

“To show my thanks, I shall spare your life. I do not trust you, Perseus Jackson. I do not like what your arrival means for the future of Olympus. But for the sake of peace in the family, I shall let you live.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Luke was so tense I thought he was going to stay that way forever. 

“Brother,” Poseidon said, a small smile upon his lips. He held out his hand.

Zeus made a face but he pulled some drachmas from his pocket and handed them over to Poseidon. He glared at me and Luke. “Do not let me find you here when I return. Otherwise you shall taste this bolt. And it shall be your last sensation.” Thunder shook the palace. With a blinding flash of lightning, Zeus was gone. 

We were alone with my father. 

“Your uncle,” Poseidon sighed, “has always had a flair for dramatic exits. I think he would’ve done well as the God of theater.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. 

I was going to skip the whole Kronos is awake part but I didn’t want to draw attention to Luke. The other Gods weren’t quite as dense as Zeus was. Poseidon couldn’t figure out that I’d brought a thief into Olympus. So I told dad about Kronos. 

Poseidon was silent for a long time. “Lord Zeus has closed discussion on this matter. He will not allow talk of Kronos. You have completed your Quest, child. That is all you need to do.”

If only. 

“But -“ I stopped myself, as my line called for. “As...as you wish, Father.” 

A faint smile played on his lips. “Obedience does not come naturally to you, does it?” 

“No, sir.” 

“I must take some blame for that, I suppose. The sea does not like to be restrained.” No shit. Poseidon rose to his full height and took up his trident. Then he shimmered and became the size of a regular man, standing directly in front of us. “You must go, child.”

I bit my lip. “Was that Quest money or romance money?” 

Poseidon looked surprised. He looked between Luke and I. “Is there romance?” 

I took Luke’s hand. 

His skin was cold and he squeezed my hand hard. Luke had not spoken a word since we entered the throne room. 

“Ah. I see,” Poseidon said. He faced Luke, studied him for a long few moments. “Are you worthy of my son?”

“Well, Mrs. Jackson didn’t turn me to stone,” Luke said quietly. “And her judgement seems sound.”

Poseidon’s expression turned fond. “Was she thinking about it?”

Luke nodded. “Yes, sir.”

_What?!_

Poseidon turned to me. “Your mother is a queen among women,” he said wistfully. “I had not met such a mortal woman in a thousand years. Still...I am sorry you were born, child. I have brought you a hero’s fate, and a hero’s fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic.”

“I’m sorry too,” I said and felt that crushing weight of responsibility on my shoulders again. “We’ll leave you now. We won’t bother you again.” I pulled Luke towards the exit. 

We got two steps away when Poseidon called, “Perseus.”

I turned.

“You did well, Perseus. Do not misunderstand me. Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are a true son of the Sea God.”

I thought of Backbiter dripping with ichor and the River Lethe carrying away chunks of meat that used to be a God. 

Luke and I left the palace.

As we walked through the city of the Gods, conversations stopped. The minor Gods and Goddesses, the satyrs and naiads, the nine muses, turned towards us, faces full of respect and gratitude, and they knelt, as if I were some kind of hero. 

Fifteen minutes later, we were on the streets of Manhattan, heading towards the car. Luke was shaking with anger. “Was that -“

“Yes.”

“He said -“

“Almost word for word,” I agreed tiredly. 

Luke always drove faster when he was angry and now we sped towards Montauk going eighty. After our meeting with the Gods, Luke seemed to have forgotten about my disappearance in favor of seething. 

When we got home, I went into the bathroom for a shower. I left the door open in what I hoped was a clear invitation. 

Sure enough, Luke was in the bathroom before I could even turn the water on, perched on the counter. “What the fuck, Percy?” 

“That’s what the Gods are like.”

“He said you’re a mistake. To your face,” Luke vented. “They both did.”

I didn’t answer. The water felt good, felt like I was washing away the filth of the Gods. 

“Hermes was a dick but he wasn’t like _that._”

I let Luke vent through my shower and while I forced down some fruit, right up until I crawled into our bed. He seemed happy to be able to bitch about the Gods openly. This was probably the first time he had someone to listen to him. 

But once I crawled into bed, I held out my arms and said, “Luke, c’mere.”

Luke shut up immediately, slipped out of his shoes, and crawled up onto the bed. He hovered over me. “You look tired, puppy.”

“Lay on me till I fall asleep,” I said. “Please?” Exhaustion seeped into my bones and made my eyelids heavy. I knew I was going to have nightmares about what I’d done to Hades but I didn’t care. 

Luke lowered himself onto me, tucked his head beneath my chin. “Are we going back?”

“One more night at home,” I said. “And tomorrow we’ll go back to Camp for the rest of the summer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Percy sings to open the doors to the Underworld is called Lone Dog by Irene Rutherford McLeod. I thought it was appropriate.
> 
> Shout out to that person who recommended my fic on tumblr to the person asking for lukercy fics. They were asking for something that wasn't angst, though. lol 
> 
> Also, I made a _How Much I Love The Characters_ jar thing for Percy Jackson. You can check it out on my [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1213911). There's a blank one if anyone wants to do it themselves. Don't worry, guys, that's a direct link to a safe for work post (although my pillowfort is nsfw).


	13. The Future Is Golden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue! Percy and Luke return to Camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad news first, I had to put this fic on users-only mode (which means you need to be logged in to an account to read it) because summybeargirl on wattpad decided to reupload it there and last I saw, won't take it down. Because they're an asshole. Don't reupload my fics anywhere. Thanks. 
> 
> Secondly, it isn't Saturday but I started writing this fic on 02/01/2020 and I finished it on 05/01/2020 so I felt like it was a bit poetic to have such an even time frame. 
> 
> The good news? I've officially _written a novel_. That's right. This is officially a completed novel. Have some stats!  
110,040 words  
241 pages  
13 chapters

There was no way to make sure that the house at Montauk was secure but we did our best. I hinted again that a dragon would be good for when we couldn’t be home. “Camp Half-Blood has a dragon,” I pointed out. 

“No they don’t,” Luke said.

He was right, partially. I conceded.“Not yet, but they will.” 

I found a new hiding place for the helm of darkness, which was under the floorboards in our bedroom. Still not the best place but I was working with limited resources. When we got back, I would hide it again. As far as I could tell, Luke didn’t know that I still had it.

Luke hadn’t asked about my whereabouts yet. I wasn’t lulled into thinking he forgot, but I think he wanted me to tell him of my own free will. I would, soon. Just not yet. I was waiting for a good time. If there is a good time to tell your boyfriend that you’re officially a God slayer. 

We packed a couple of changes of clothing into our backpacks after making sure that the previous contents had been hidden away. “Are you bringing Backbiter?” 

“I don’t want to just leave it laying around,” Luke said but he sounded unsure. 

"Follow your heart, I guess. You can’t use it at Camp but you managed to hide it from me,” I said as I packed my least favorite clothing. Just in case it got ruined or stolen at Camp. You never knew. 

“Of course you were looking for it,” Luke said with a sigh. He flashed me a fond smile. “Looking back on everything makes me feel stupid.”

“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t want him to feel stupid because of me. He wasn’t stupid, I’d just already done this before. 

Luke shrugged. His smile faded. “Now that I know more about what’s going on, you’ve got to do better at blending in. You’re...extremely weird for a demigod.” He put Backbiter into his backpack. 

“Is this about the fish? Because you and the naiads are the only ones who saw me eating that fish,” I said as I zipped up my backpack. Riptide was in my pocket where it belonged and I felt ready to go back. For a short visit, at least. 

Luke drove us to Half-Blood Hill and onto the property. I don’t think anyone was expecting us to drive into Camp in a Hummer so by the time we stopped at the garage next to the Big House, we had quite a crowd gathered around. 

Cheers went up when we got out of the car. 

Billie, head of the Demeter Cabin, placed laurel wreaths on our heads and since she was so short, we had to kneel to receive them. “Congratulations, heroes,” she said with a bright smile. 

I’m glad she wasn’t upset about me ditching her in the Demeter garden when I first arrived. Billie wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. 

Annabeth threw her arms around Luke’s neck. “You did it!” She yelled in his ear. 

Luke hugged Annabeth and then spun her around. By the time Luke put her down, they were both smiling. “Of course I did,” Luke agreed and this time his smile was for me. He stepped over to put an arm around my shoulders. 

Annabeth’s gray eyes narrowed. 

We were herded to the dining pavilion, where a huge feast had been prepared in our honor. The food was delicious and on top of the usual food, there were also sweet fruit cakes, and breads drenched in honey and butter, there was juicy, fatty meat and loaded baked potatoes. 

At our feast, no one was forced to sit with their own tables so it was a hodgepodge of Campers mixed in among each other. I sat beside Luke with Nico, Bianca, and Clovis on one side. Annabeth, Grover, and Ethan sat on Luke’s other side. It felt a lot like still being in the Hermes Cabin, crowded so close that our elbows knocked every time we moved. 

As we ate, we told the Camp what had happened. The abridged version, of course, because we couldn’t tell them everything. Not even close. Some of it had to be glossed over, like the part where I found the Di Angelo siblings. 

Every time we mentioned fighting a monster, Nico chimed in with the attack points that monster got. His eyes lit up when we talked about cutting off Medusa’s head. “Was it disgusting?” he asked, vibrating with glee. 

“It was so gross!” I said as I shoved a juicy bite of steak into my mouth. “She bleeds green and I got it on my shoes.”

“Gross!” Nico yelled. 

Conner and Travis wanted to see what Luke had stolen for them. They sat opposite us, practically bouncing up and down in their seats. Travis asked, “What did you get, Luke?” 

“Something cool?” Conner asked. 

“Was it incredible? Did you steal that car?” Travis said without waiting for an answer to the first questions they asked. 

“I bought that car,” Luke said with a laugh. “So don’t you dare think about trashing it.” He reached into his pockets and produced a couple of Waterland pocket knives. They had Conner and Travis’ names carved into the sides. I hadn’t noticed him getting those. He tossed them to the brothers. 

The Stoll brothers caught their knives and immediately flipped them open. “Oh sweet!” Conner said, delighted. 

Travis snapped his fingers. “Oh, hey, I got that thing for you, Percy.” He reached into his pocket and produced a small metal figurine. He tossed it to me. 

I caught the figure and looked at it. It was a mythomagic figure of a God that I knew well. Hades. I nudged Nico to get his attention and held it out to him. “This is for you, Nico.” 

Nico was so excited that he looked like he might faint. He took the figurine from me and held it reverently. “Oh my gods,” he whispered, eyes wide and voice awed. “OH MY GODS MY COLLECTION IS COMPLETE!” Nico turned to Bianca and showed her. “BIANCA!” He yelled. 

Bianca looked stunned to see the little figure but Nico was so happy that she couldn’t help but smile at him. “That was very...intuitive of Percy,” Bianca said and her smile never left her face as she looked at me over Nico’s head. “Say thank you.” 

Nico threw his arms around me with such vigor that he made Luke spill his drink. _“Grazie, grazie, grazie!”_

I slipped an arm around Nico’s waist and brushed my cheek against his briefly. “You’re welcome.” Bianca looked like she was considering stabbing me, so I kept the hug short and went back to eating my feast. I gave her a look that said _‘we would talk later.’_

“I don’t like that look,” Clovis muttered. He held a slice of bread so soaked in butter and honey that it dripped down his hand. 

“I’m sorry about your bed, Clovis,” I said. 

“You couldn’t even keep it in one piece. Now I’m sleeping on the floor like an animal,” Clovis retorted. He eyed me. “I know what I’m missing out on and I expect payment when all this is over.” 

“On the Styx,” I promised. 

After the feast, Luke and I led a procession down to the bonfire so that we could burn the burial shrouds our Cabins had made for us. The fire burned high and hot and beside it was a small girl of about seven. Hestia. She smiled at us as we approached. 

I faltered.

I was going to have to kill her. 

My favorite Goddess. The one who protected the homestead. The last Olympian. 

Luke caught me looking at Hestia and tugged me closer to the fire. He looked like he wanted to say something but we were surrounded by campers. 

Luke’s burial shroud was made of a silvery fabric that had a caduceus painted on it in black paint and wings embroidered on the edges. It was beautiful and a little menacing. Just like Luke. 

“It should be white and green,” I murmured so that only Luke could hear me. “That’s what they used when you died on Olympus.” 

“Who made it?” 

I thought about that and then shrugged. “It’s just what the Fates used when they carried your body away.” 

Being the son of Poseidon, I didn’t have cabinmates, so I expected that my shroud had been left to the Ares Cabin to make. But the shroud that they brought out was not an old bed sheet that had been spray painted. It was a shimmering fabric that looked like the inside of an abalone shell and it was so beautiful that my jaw dropped. 

Clovis smirked when he saw my expression. “I’m not happy that you took my bed and I didn’t _really_ expect you to die, but when I saw what the Ares Cabin made…” Clovis pursed his lips. “They don’t know any better but I do and you, Percy Jackson, deserve to die in something beautiful.” 

“Thanks. I think.” I patted Clovis on the back. 

It was a shame to burn the beautiful shroud but it was tradition. There would be a lot of shroud-burning when it came to me and Luke. I hoped that we would always get such lovely shrouds.

Once our burial shrouds were burnt, the Apollo cabin led a sing-along and passed out s’mores. As though we needed to eat more food after that huge feast. I took one anyway and used it as an excuse not to sing. 

During the singing, Grover came and sat next to me. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder and a walking stick in one hand. “You made it back alive.” 

“Yeah, I did.” A pit formed in my stomach. “Are you leaving on your search for Pan now?” 

Grover nodded. He looked out into the forest, past the bonfire. “I need to go look. I can feel him. If I don’t look, then I’ll never be able to live with myself.” He turned his eyes to me, pleading for me to understand. 

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck, Grover. Call us if you need anything. I don’t want you to go missing forever, okay?” 

Luke reached over and ruffled Grover’s hair, between his horns. The horns had grown at least an inch in the time we’d been gone. “Travel safely, old friend.” 

“Thank you,” Grover said to us and his hairy chin quivered. He pulled us both into hugs and then he got up and trekked to the forest. The trees closed in around him. 

Luke stared into the darkness Grover disappeared into. “Puppy?” 

“We’ll see him again,” I said.

“Did you just call Jackson ‘puppy’?” Annabeth’s voice came out of nowhere. She had her hands on her hips and her nose crinkled in distaste. 

Neither of us answered her. 

Luke pulled a familiar Yankees cap out of his pocket. “Before I forget to give this back. Thanks, Annabeth. It was really helpful.” He held it out to her. 

Annabeth flushed and her fingers brushed Luke’s when she took her cap back. She folded it and put it in her back pocket. “I’m glad you’re back, Luke.” 

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Percy,” Luke said and flashed me that fond smile again. He ducked his head to kiss my cheek. 

I couldn’t help but preen under Luke’s attention. 

Before we could continue the conversation, Dionysus stood for his welcome-home speech. “Yes, yes, so the little brat didn’t get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be _no_ canoe races this Saturday…” 

I rolled my eyes. 

Luke frowned at Dionysus like he had a bone to pick with this God too. 

The festivities were winding down because everyone needed to get to their Cabins before curfew. Campers trailed off in groups of two and three, disappearing into their Cabins and calling goodnight to each other. 

Annabeth had disappeared sometime between our conversation and Dionysus’ speech. I caught a glimpse of her curly blonde head going into her Cabin. 

Luke tasked Travis and Conner with herding the kids of Cabin Eleven to their beds. Soon, it was just me and Luke sitting by the fire. 

I slipped my hand over Luke’s. “My door is open to you,” I said. 

Luke doubled over to kiss my cheek again. He lingered, letting his cheek brush against mine. “Thanks,” he said. “We’ll see.” 

I nodded. Now that Luke was on my side, I didn’t need to worry about what he was doing. I would miss him but we could stand eight hours apart. I turned my face to kiss his cheek, almost his mouth but not quite there yet. “I’m going to go to bed. I haven’t slept in…” I wasn’t actually sure how long. 

Luke walked me to my Cabin and hugged me in the doorway.

“I love you,” I said and then closed the door before he could reply. The hellhound head nearly made me jump out of my skin. I covered my mouth to muffle the surprised noise I made. 

Chiron had indeed stuffed the hellhound’s head for me and he’d mounted it on the wall by the door. It’s eyes were beady and made of glass. It was a good job, all around, and would probably last for many years. I pet the top of its head. The fur was still soft. 

I striped down to my boxers and slid between the cool blue sheets of my bunk. 

The next morning, I opened my Cabin door, tripped over a body and sent us both sprawling in the dirt. 

I pushed myself up out of the dirt and looked at the boy beneath me. “Leo?” I got to my feet and held out a hand.

Leo took my hand. “Hi, Percy,” he said with a smile. He dusted himself off. 

“Hi, Leo,” I said as I did the same. My knee was scraped and bleeding. “How are you doing?” 

Leo had a hammer hanging from his belt. Ah. He looked around the Camp with a critical eye. “Is something wrong with me?” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. I headed towards the dining pavilion and gestured for Leo to follow. 

Leo hummed thoughtfully, following as obediently as a dog. “The horse man,” 

“Chiron.”

“Right. Chiron. He thinks there’s something wrong with me.” 

“Why does he think that?” I asked. 

“I don’t remember anything,” Leo said sadly. He stopped walking. “I don’t remember if I have a family or where I came from or why my hands do this.” Leo held up both palms and they flared red hot, smoke rising as they began to catch fire. “How did we meet?” 

I stared at Leo’s smoking hands with worry fluttering in my chest. What if it wasn’t enough? What if I just made him more likely to hurt himself and others? “Luke and I went to your boarding school and picked you up to help us on our Quest. I don’t know who your family is or where you were before that. There was an accident and you hit your head pretty bad.” 

Leo considered that. He couldn’t refute it even if he wanted to. He didn’t have the memories to and there was no one here to back him up. Leo held up his hands, which were sparking. “And this?”

“One of your parents is a God and you inherited their powers,” I said, glancing nervously at his hands. There wasn’t much to burn in the immediate area except for grass. And me, of course. I had a heat immunity, not a fire immunity. 

Leo looked down at his palms and the red slowly faded back into the brown of his skin. He was no longer smoking or sparking. “Oh. Okay. Which one?” 

“Hespheastus, I think,” I said because they would find out sooner rather than later. There were no other Gods with fire powers except for maybe Hades and I still wasn’t sure why exactly Nico had that sort of power. Well, and Hestia, but I was pretty sure she didn’t have kids. 

From behind Leo, I saw Luke leading the Hermes Cabin up to the dining pavilion. They all had wet hair, which meant that Luke had managed to wrangle them into the showers before breakfast. Luke caught sight of us and cocked his head just slightly. 

“Go with Luke,” I told Leo. “You’ve got to eat breakfast with the Hermes Cabin until your dad claims you.” 

Leo took a few steps towards Luke then paused and turned around. “How did your surprise go? Did your dad like it?” 

I thought about the canister changing into a lightning bolt and all of that hard, dirty work undone in seconds. I thought about leaving Leo at the Wilderness School with Piper, where he was safe under the watchful eye of Coach Hedge. “He loved it,” I lied. “Thank you.” 

Leo beamed at me. 

The next morning, I ran into Nico. Literally. He was waiting for me outside of the shower building. “Sorry, Nico,” I said and stepped aside so that he could move past me. 

Nico did not move past me. 

I walked past him, towards my Cabin.

Nico fell into step beside me. “Do you have a sword?” 

“Yes,” I said. 

“Will you teach me?” Before I could even respond, Nico rushed on. “Clovis said that you’d be taking over our training when you got back from your Quest.” Nico looked up at me with hopeful, sparkling brown eyes. 

Saying no to Nico had always been difficult for me and in this case I didn’t want to, even though I was going to have some words with Clovis later. “Of course I’ll train you. And Bianca, if she wants me to.” 

We walked into the inverted U of Cabins, past the Hermes Cabin. I hadn’t seen Luke except for a few seconds at breakfast yesterday. Now he stood outside of his Cabin with Annabeth. The sun had barely risen but they were clearly fighting. “Family, Luke! You promised!” Annabeth shouted at him and then ran off.

Luke didn’t seem to notice me and Nico. He ran after her, overtook her easily, and caught her in his arms. I couldn’t hear what he said to her but his mouth was moving fast. 

Annabeth screamed and kicked and hit him. Her voice was shrill as she responded. 

I had to walk past them to get to Cabin Three and suddenly I didn’t want to. I turned to Nico. “What do you say I teach you some moves now?” 

Nico had been watching them too and he looked just as eager as I was to leave them to it. “Yeah, okay. But I don’t have a sword.” 

“We’ll get you one,” I promised and did an about face towards the armory, which was in the opposite direction of my Cabin. Should I go back and try to intervene? Would intervening make things better or worse? Maybe they just needed to talk it out. I glanced over my shoulder. 

Annabeth smacked Luke across the face so hard that the sound echoed. 

Anger boiled hot in my veins. So hot that I was surprised I could get this mad at Annabeth. It scared me a little. 

“Percy?” Nico asked, voice small. 

I blinked and looked down at him. “Yeah. Right. We’re going to the armory.” 

We walked the rest of the way in silence. I didn’t fool myself into thinking that was a good thing; when Nico was quiet it meant he was upset. When I’d rescued Nico before, when he was ten, nothing could shut him up except a sharp word from Bianca. He was nine at the moment but I had no reason to think that he would be any different. Then again, there had been a drastic difference between ten-year-old Nico and eleven-year-old Nico. 

I got Nico suited up in Greek armor, had him try out a few swords. 

“They don’t feel right,” Nico said with a disappointed frown. 

“When you master shadow-travel, I’ll send you to a place to get your sword. One that was made for you,” I promised. “In the meantime, just pick out something that feels the least wrong.” 

Nico chose a sword and then a shield. 

I took him into the forest. Normally, I would train a demigod in the sword fighting arena but I had the feeling that Luke would be heading that way and I wanted to avoid a fight. And a break up. Would he break up with me because of Annabeth? No; don’t think about that. 

I ran through the basics with Nico, exactly the way Luke had taught me the first time. 

Nico was a good student, bright and eager to learn. Even with ADHD, he was extremely attentive, which may have had something to do with this being a special interest. He wasn’t perfect, but no one was their first try and the blade he was using wasn’t right for him. 

I didn’t see Luke for the rest of the day.

The next day, Bianca joined our sword fighting lesson. She complained about the feeling of the sword too. It wasn’t balanced, it felt awkward.

“It’s alright,” I said after nicking her armor again. “It’s important to know the basics. But there are other weapons. Clarisse uses an electric spear. The Apollo Cabin is known for their archery. Annabeth has her dagger.” 

Bianca straightened up and looked at the sword in her hand. “I think I should try another weapon,” she said. 

“But swords are so cool!” Nico protested and swung his like a baseball bat. 

“Well, if you want to learn archery, you could ask Michael Yew. He’s the head of the Apollo Cabin.” I wiped sweat off my brow. “Don’t tell Chiron, but Michael might even be better than he is at archery.” 

Bianca cocked her head and studied me. “Will you walk me to the Apollo Cabin, Percy?” She had a look on her face like she wanted to talk to me. 

“Sure. Nico, why don’t you go wait for me at the dock? We can go swimming after this.” I ruffled Nico’s sweaty hair. 

Nico looked to Bianca. He still deferred to her over me, which was fine. That was how it should be. 

Bianca nodded. 

Nico beamed at me then took off running for the dock. 

“Sheath your sword!” I yelled after him. Then, I turned to Bianca and gestured for her to go. 

Bianca started walking through the forest, back towards the Cabins. She looked at the ground, long black hair covering most of her face. I couldn’t help but remember the girl who joined Artemis, how much better she had looked then. How much more confident she had been. Confidence was a good look on Bianca. “Our lawyer isn’t here and hasn’t ever been here.” 

“No, she isn’t,” I agreed as I walked beside Bianca. “I lied to you.” 

“But a lawyer did come to take us to the hotel. He checked up on us,” Bianca protested. “And you were right. These people call themselves our family. Chiron says that we’re home now.” 

“I met your lawyer a few times, but as far as I know, she’s never been to Camp Half-Blood.” I kicked a rock. “Camp Half-Blood is the home for Greek demigods. Those lucky enough to make it here, anyway.” 

We came to the edge of the forest and Bianca stopped walking. She gestured to the large meadows before us, dotted with buildings and the lake. “The world feels so different from what I remember. We were only in the hotel for a few months but everything has changed. What am I looking at here, Percy?”

I studied her face, the pinched lines of worry, the sad brown eyes, the determined set to her jaw. “It must feel like being in a completely different world,” I said finally.

“It’s like waking up in a...a rabbit hole,” Bianca agreed. 

I didn’t like the idea that Camp Half-Blood was actually Wonderland but it was terribly apt. “I know you’re curious and confused and you don’t trust me. You have good reason to be suspicious. I swear that I’ll explain everything, _everything_, answer all of your questions, if you can just hold on for another week.” 

Bianca brushed the hair out of her eyes. She tipped her chin up to meet my gaze. “Do I have a choice?” 

I shrugged, offered a small smile. “You could keep asking me but it would be much easier, and make much more sense, if I could just _show_ you everything.” 

“Why don’t you do it now?” 

I looked out towards the sword fighting arena. I could make out the shape of Luke, hacking away at the dummies. “I’m not really in a good headspace to explain everything right now. But I’m hoping that things will clear up in a few days.” 

Bianca gave me a critical once over. “You look tired, Percy.” 

I smiled at her. “I am.” 

Clovis cornered me at the lake. “Did you do it?”

“Yes,” I said without taking my eyes off the minnows swimming in the shallows. They were too small to eat but I liked the way their scales reflected off the sun and how their voices were teeny tiny in my head. 

“Will it stick?” Clovis asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “No one has ever done this before.” I wished I could be a minnow. It seemed like an easy life. 

Clovis left me by the lake. 

Night four without Luke by my side. Night three without sleep. 

I stared at the ceiling until my nerves couldn’t take it anymore and my body made me get up. If I was going to pout and worry sleep away, then I needed to be moving while I did it. Carefully, I eased open my door and peered into the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust. 

There was no one out. 

I left my Cabin without my shoes and walked barefoot down to the lake. I stood on the shore and looked into the dark depths. My body ached to go into the cool water and expand my gills. To sit at the bottom and tear into fish with my teeth. To speak the language of water with the naiads. I didn’t want to exist in this world. 

I squatted down, arms curled around my ribs and rocked on my feet. The water wasn’t touching me but I could feel that it longed to envelope me in its gentle embrace. I wanted to be a drowned thing within its waters. Tears slid down my cheeks. Wouldn’t that be nice? No more responsibility. Maybe I would go to the Fields of Punishment, if they were still there. Gods, what have I done? 

Once I started crying, I couldn’t stop. Everything hurt, my feelings were a kaleidoscope of glass. I dropped onto my hands and knees, tears falling into the lakewater. 

Luke hated me. We hadn’t said two words to each other since our first night back at Camp. I’d used and manipulated and threatened him into joining my cause and being in a relationship with me. I was an awful, terrible person who ruined Luke’s relationship with Annabeth and ruined Luke and we wouldn’t even have anything to show for it. Why would he ever want me? 

The more I cried, the more I felt like Alice in Wonderland, filling the room with her tears. The back of my neck prickled and I heard the fluttering of wings. **“Leave me alone or I’ll kill you.”**

The harpies didn’t leave me alone.

I focused on the saltwater blood in their veins.

The harpies exploded, blood and gore going everywhere. It would have landed on me too, but I whipped up a shield just before it touched me. All that was left of the harpies was blood splatter in the shape of sunbursts on the sand. 

Normally the harpies left me alone. I warned them. No. Wrong language. I spoke to them in the wrong language. They didn’t understand me. I put my face in my hands, doubled over, hair brushing the sand. **“Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.”** I cried so hard that I could taste the dirt, that I couldn’t get air into my lungs. 

“One letter for - oh.” 

I didn’t look up but I recognized the voice and it just made me curl harder into myself. I didn’t want him to see me crying like a child. **“Go away. Please.”**

Hands touched my shoulders and they felt painfully familiar. His voice was gentle, sympathetic, all too knowing. “Emotions are so messy, aren’t they?” 

**“I just want to make things better,”** I sobbed. **“But everything is worse.”**

Hermes' arms came around me and suddenly I was being lifted, carried like a small child. He coaxed my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. “Normally we aren’t allowed to interfere in the affairs of you demigods but you are in desperate need of help, Percy Jackson,” Hermes said as he carried me back to my Cabin. “And I don’t think this particularly counts as interfering. You crying into the lake or into your pillow won’t alter the course of events.” 

I tucked my face into his neck and held on lest he decide to drop me halfway. Hermes didn’t smell like Luke. He smelled like fresh paper and wet ink and faintly musky like bird feathers. **“You shouldn’t help me at all.”**

Hermes laid me on my bed, tucked me in. When was the last time he’d done this? When Luke was a baby? “Now I’m not the God of sleep, but I’ve got something to help you sleep.” He produced a bottle of pills from his satchel. Hermes shook one out onto his palm and pressed it to my lips. 

I kept my lips tightly closed and stared up at him with bleary, mistrustful eyes. Hermes may have been sent to kill me quietly. No one else knew where Hades had gone so there was no need to publicly take me out and make a show of it. 

Hermes gave an annoyed hum when I refused to open my mouth. He appraised me for a moment then shrugged and popped the pill into his own mouth. The next thing I knew, Hermes was kissing me, mouth pressed against mine and tongue sliding against my lips. 

I gasped, only too late realized that that was the opening Hermes was looking for. 

Hermes slid the pill and his tongue past my parted lips. He tasted faintly of French Vanilla coffee. 

The taste of his mouth, the weight of his hands on either side of me, reminded me of Luke. I missed Luke so much that it hit me like a punch to the gut. If I closed my eyes… My arms were around Hermes’ neck almost before I decided to put them there. Swallowing the pill was an accident, an afterthought. I wanted the taste of it out of my mouth, wanted the flavor of Luke’s favorite coffee blend to replace it. I rubbed my tongue against his, made a desperate noise into Herme’s mouth.

Hermes was very good at kissing, which made sense because he was a God who had thousands of years of practice. If my willingness to kiss him came as a surprise, he didn’t show it at all. Then again, Hermes was a God and even Gods had to be good at rolling with the punches sometimes. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me into his lap, his hands on my ass. His tongue coaxed mine into his mouth.

Our kiss was wet and sloppy and I licked the flavor of coffee out of his mouth until Hermes tasted like me. I pressed against him, legs wrapped around his waist again but it wasn’t with innocence this time. I rolled my hips, ground down against his lap and pushed my erection into his abs. What I needed was a distraction; from my impossible Quest, from Luke, from this body that didn’t feel like me. The pill hit shortly after I swallowed it. I only had a few minutes to make out with Hermes before I was too tired to keep my arms around his neck and fell back onto my pillow. My legs were still around his waist, spread open around his hips. “Hermes,” I whispered, voice raw from crying. “Don’t tell him. Don’t let…”

Hermes smiled down at me, expression surprisingly tender and sad. He stood and tucked me in again. “You don’t have to worry about my son finding out. You won’t remember a thing, darling.” Hermes kissed me one more time, mouth firm against my slack lips. “Now hush, and enjoy a bit of deep, dreamless sleep.” 

I wanted to ask what he meant about not remembering but… I yawned and closed my eyes. 

I opened my eyes and saw sunlight in my Cabin, which was unusual because normally the door was closed. Could have sworn I closed that door when I went to bed last night after the sing-along. Oh well. I stretched and smiled. I felt good. Really good. Like I’d just had the best sleep ever. Did they swap out the mattresses while I was on my Quest? 

“I didn’t think you were going to wake up,” Clovis’ voice came from near my feet. He was laying in one of the other beds, looking sleepy and comfortable. He looked at someone to my right and said, “Go get Luke.” 

Nico sat in a chair that he must have stolen from the Big House because my Cabin didn’t have chairs. He bolted out of his chair and through the open door. 

I was about to ask what the worry was about, when I noticed something in my hand. It was a letter. “What do you mean you thought I wasn’t going to wake up?” I asked Clovis as I sliced open the letter with my finger. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar. 

“You’ve been asleep for three days,” Clovis said.

“Oh,” I said, barely listening. The handwriting was Jason’s handwriting. “Well that’s…Did you say three days?”

“Yes. Your boyfriend and your ward haven’t left your side in that long, either. I only just managed to convince Luke to go eat something.” 

“My ward?” I asked with a smile. Hearing that Luke hadn’t left me was nice...except it would have been nicer if he had spent any time with me while I was conscious. Maybe he just needed a break. Or maybe he hated me. The jury was still out on that one.

Clovis shrugged. “To call Nico anything less would be insulting to both of you.” 

Arms were around me and someone was on top of me. Luke. He held me tight and then pulled back to see that my eyes were open. “Are you okay? What happened? You’ve been asleep for three days. What’s that?” Luke’s last question was directed at the letter in my hand. 

“A letter from Jason,” I said. I kissed Luke’s cheek and then squeezed my hands between us so that I could actually read it. 

Luke’s brow furrowed. “How did you get it?” 

“It was in my hand when I woke up,” I said with a shrug. I had to read slowly because the letter was in English but what I got out of it was that he had been successful, he was fine, and he would wait for my word to move on to the next target. 

Luke read the letter upside down, which was particularly skillful of him. “What does this mean?” 

“Can I tell you after breakfast? I’m starving,” I said as I waded up the paper and slipped it into my pocket. I’d have to get rid of it somehow, maybe use Leo’s firepower to burn it or ‘accidentally’ toss it into a forge. 

“The next meal is dinner, Percy,” Clovis said. 

Luke twisted around to look at him. “You can go anytime, Clovis.” 

Clovis sighed. “I’m going to take a nap first.”

“We owe him a bed anyway,” I said. I cupped Luke’s cheek to draw his attention back to me. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” 

Clovis snored somewhere around my feet. 

The door was suddenly shut and locked. Luke’s image barely flickered. My brain didn’t even process that his weight was gone before he returned. “Coming back to Camp hasn’t been easy…” Luke said. He pressed his face into my neck, rubbed his skin against mine. “Nothing has been easy,” he amended quietly.

“It has been a long two months,” I agreed. 

“Gods, it’s only been two months, hasn’t it?” Luke groaned. He pulled back and cupped my face. “Are you okay, puppy?” 

“I mean, no. Everyone I love is dead. I’ve got an impossible Quest. My boyfriend won’t even kiss me and I’m pretty sure he’s avoiding me. My sleep schedule is, honestly, a nightmare.” I ticked them off on my fingers as I counted off the things that immediately came to mind. 

“What is going on with your sleep schedule?” Luke asked. The fact that that was what he latched onto did not encourage good thoughts. 

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t slept since our first night here. Now I’m sleeping through three whole days.” I met his eye. “Are you avoiding me?”

Luke broke eye contact. “A little. There’s a lot to process from the past two months.” His hands slid down to my shoulders, then down to lightly encircle my wrists. “Everything centers around you, and as crazy as some of the shit that has happened to us has been, somehow I can’t get over the fact that your body is twelve and wanting you makes me hate myself.”

I finally had to drop my gaze. I stared at the hollow of Luke’s throat. “You said that before. Is it...really that bad?” Considering who our parents were and the company we keep, it felt strange that Luke kept coming back to that. Maybe if we had been normal. 

“What if it isn’t just you?” Luke sounded like he was choking on his words. “What if I just have a thing for twelve year olds? What if I won’t like you when you’re older?” 

I licked my lips, fidgeted. “I think you will.” 

Luke met my eye for the briefest of seconds. “What makes you say that? We didn’t end up together then.” 

“You wanted Annabeth when she was sixteen so I’m assuming you’ll want me then too. And sixteen isn’t really that different from eighteen or twenty.” 

Luke squeezed my wrists. Not enough to hurt. He ran his hands up and down my forearms and I got the sense that he was trying to ground himself. “Me and Annabeth?” Luke sounded surprised enough that I don’t think it was something that he’d seriously considered before now. 

I shook my head. “No. You two don’t end up together. You asked about her feelings for you while you were on your deathbed.” 

Some of the tension bled out of Luke’s shoulders. His hands stilled for a few seconds, only for his thumbs to smooth over my inner wrists. “You haven’t even finished developing your primary sex characteristics, let alone the secondary ones.”

I cocked my head. “How -“

“Percy, I’m the oldest person at Camp who isn’t a God, a horse, or a tree. Who do you think kids come to with their puberty questions?” 

I frowned. When I was at Camp there were a lot of people my age. I was _just_ the sword fighting instructor, not the person who answered questions about your body. There were plenty of people for the kids to ask who weren’t me. “I can’t do anything about this. It’s not like I’m thrilled to be going through puberty a second time or about being in a body that feels wrong. If I could have my adult body back, I would take it in a heartbeat.” 

“I know,” Luke said. He looked guilty. 

There was a knock on the door. “Is Percy okay?” Nico yelled through it. 

Luke’s image flickered again and the door was suddenly open. 

Nico bounded into my Cabin only to hesitate when he saw Luke straddling my legs. The look of uncertainty on his face made my heart hurt. “A-are you okay, Percy?” 

I beckoned Nico closer to us. “I’m alright, Neeks.” 

Shit. 

Nico approached us slowly, like we were wild animals that would bite if he made any sudden moves. He pulled the chair up and sat with his knees touching my mattress. If he minded the nickname, he didn’t show it. “Luke took over my training while you were asleep.” Nico looked between us like he was wondering if we would get mad. 

“Good,” I said, and clasped Luke’s hand. “Luke is a good teacher. He trained me.” 

“Nico has been picking it up fast,” Luke said. 

Nico’s smile was full of relief. “And Bianca’s been spending a lot of time at the Apollo Cabin. Michael Yew is training her to be an archer.” 

Bianca was doing what I told her to do but it made me nervous that she was spending so much time with a boy. Artemis wouldn’t want her if Bianca wasn’t a maiden. _She’s only twelve,_ I told myself. “I’m glad to hear that you’re both doing well.” 

Nico took that as an invitation to start talking about everything Luke was teaching him. 

I was starving but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to have Luke by my side and to listen to Nico talk so excitedly. Seeing Nico happy and excited was so good that it made my chest feel like it was full of sparklers. The happiness I felt for him, for this perfect boy who hadn’t yet been corrupted by demigod life, was bright and sharp. Because I knew that this couldn’t last. Sooner rather than later, I would have to tell Nico everything. But I would wait for as long as I could, I would put it off until I couldn’t anymore. 

I sat down at the dock, feet dangling in the water. The naiads were braiding each other's hair twenty feet below me. It was a beautiful summer day, not too hot yet, a bit of a breeze. The smell of strawberries made the breeze sweet. The fine hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I turned to look at who was coming. 

Annabeth walked towards me wearing her orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and short shorts, her dagger hanging from her belt. With every step her blonde curls bounced. Her hips didn’t yet sway in that womanly, enticing way they would as she got older. For now she was gangly and shapeless. Annabeth sat beside me with a sigh. “So you’re alive,” she said in a tone that implied she’d rather I’d be dead.

“So it seems,” I agreed lightly.

Annabeth didn’t say anything, just looked out over the water. Was she planning on stabbing me and dumping my body in the lake? No, she knows I could heal myself if she dumped me in the lake. 

As the minutes ticked on, I said, “So, are you going to hate me forever?” 

Annabeth’s face turned pink. It was cute. “Maybe.” 

My heart ached. I remembered a time when she said she didn’t hate me. I kicked my foot and made a splash in the water, watched the ripples expand outwards. “Is it because of Luke or because I didn’t bring you on my Quest?”

The pink of Annabeth’s cheeks darkened. “You took everything from me, Jackson. Luke is the only family I’ve got left and that Quest was supposed to be my chance to prove myself. And you found _three_ demigods on your Quest. How in Zeus’ heaven did you manage that?” 

“I could smell them,” I said dumbly. “Demigod scent and all that.” Hurriedly, I added, “Luke has the ability to love more than one person at a time, Annabeth. He’ll still be your big brother.” 

Annabeth gave me a look like she was thinking about how good I’d look with a hole in my chest. “You’re taking him away from me.” 

She was right but there was no need to tell her that. “You wouldn’t like living with us,” I said. “All the kissing,” There hadn’t been any kissing. “And the spiders.”

Annabeth gave a full-body shiver that actually moved her a couple of inches away from me. The blood drained from her face. “Spiders?” 

“Sand spiders. They’re all over the house,” I said cheerfully. Athena’s children were really the only ones who had a problem with spiders. “Can’t get rid of them.” 

Annabeth made a face of horror. She shivered again. “That’s disgusting.”

I shrugged. “Luke and I don’t mind them.” 

The conversation stalled for another few moments. 

Annabeth sighed again. “You aren’t a monster, are you, Percy?”

I patted myself down in an exaggerated way. Then raised an eyebrow at her. “I seem to be all demigod.” 

Annabeth gave me an exasperated sigh. “Luke kept asking Chiron about the monsters that we stocked in the lake and forest. He was different coming back from his last Quest but now Luke is even more different and distant.” 

I didn’t say anything. 

“And apparently you can sniff out demigods,” Annabeth pressed. Her hand inched towards her dagger. 

“Would me being a monster make things easier for you?” I asked her, cocking my head. “That way you could stab me and be the hero of Camp. I’m not the boy from the prophecy, false alarm everyone. And Luke will fall into place at your side, never leaving Camp’s borders. Just like you want.” 

Annabeth’s face turned scarlet with anger. 

I turned my face towards the lake. “Go ahead and try to kill me, Annabeth. You wouldn’t be the first, you won’t be the last.”

Annabeth got up in a huff and started walking away. “You’re impossible,” she called over her shoulder. 

“Love you too,” I said without thinking. 

“What?” Annabeth snapped. Her retreating footsteps stopped. 

I kept my eyes on the lake and hoped that when she stabbed me in the back, she’d at least hit my heart. 

Annabeth didn’t stab me. After a few long minutes with nothing but the wind between us, she turned and left. 

The next day, I pulled Luke into the lake, hand lightly encircling Luke’s wrist because I was worried about openly holding hands with a guy seven years older than me. That wasn’t a concern I’d had before Luke’s freak out but it was now. The water formed a bubble around us so that Luke could still breathe. 

We hid under the dock where once I’d kissed Annabeth like my life depended on my lips being on hers. Now I sat in Luke’s lap, legs around his waist and arms resting on his shoulders. I pressed my forehead to his. 

Although Luke had never been to the bottom of the lake before, he didn’t seem very interested in looking at anything other than me. “Tell me where you were that night,” Luke said. His breath tasted sweet like the grapes he’d just eaten. 

I wanted to lick into his mouth. I wanted to sit here in his arms until we were nothing but bones. Instead, I said, “I killed Hades.” 

Luke tensed and then pulled me even closer, so that we were chest-to-chest. “How?” He breathed the word. 

I told him, voice quiet and lips so close to Luke’s that my words were said into his mouth. It was appropriate, as my words were just for him. This close, Luke’s eyes were a blur of blue. 

Luke tilted his head and kissed me. 

It was a sweet kiss that filled me with warmth like a shot of nectar. Of all the times I imagined kissing Luke, I always thought that it would end in some overwhelming loss of control but this was nothing like that. Luke’s kiss centered me. 

Luke pulled back but only to look me in the eyes. He smiled, a wicked little grin. And he asked, “Who’s next?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <strike>One day in the future, you guys are gonna reread this epilogue and go "ooh fuck" and I'm just gonna be here cackling. </strike>
> 
> <strike>This is not the end of our adventures but for now, I'm going on a hiatus. It shouldn't last more than two months at absolute most, but I want to give myself time to write Part Two, aka Book Two, and finish some other projects. **stares at Tell The Neighbors I'm Not Sorry.** In the meantime, I'll be uploading a brand new lukercy fic for you guys. It's completely unrelated to the Revenge Verse but I'm hoping that you'll enjoy it anyway. The first chapter will be posted on Monday, 05/04/2020 so keep an eye out for it.</strike>
> 
> <strike>Thank you to everyone who has commented. You guys are awesome. I love you. I've loved talking with you. Long comments are the best. I hope to see you all for book two, _A Monster In The Making_.</strike>
> 
> **EDIT (09/23/2020):** Oh boy, everyone. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the comments and love. That being said...I'm not sure if or when I'll be continuing this story. I’ll be 100% honest with you, when I started Thorns, I was still rereading the books for the first time since they were published. I had a poor grasp on characters, motivations, and events. The wiki was somewhat misleading and a bad source to fill in the blanks.
> 
> Since then, I’ve read the books 6 times and listened to the audiobooks. I’ve got essays on Luke and his relationships with Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, and even May. I’ve realized how abusive and manipulative Annabeth is toward Percy. I’ve realized how Percy’s path parallels Luke’s in many ways. I’ve realized that Luke was more of a victim than I ever thought. And many, many other little but important tidbits have come to light with every reread.
> 
> The point is, I got so many things wrong in this fic. It’s embarrassing to think of. I’m proud because I wrote a novel but the content is out of character and cringey. I have outlines for the other parts of this story but I can’t make myself go back and reread this pile of garbage or continue to write the story. I haven’t yet figured out how to bring it all back around to be more in character and canon-complacent.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a lyric from the song [Hold My Heart by Lindsey Stirling ft ZZ Ward.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygv4T0bH2Sc)
> 
> New chapter every Saturday. 
> 
> Please, for the love of Gods, comment.


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